Patience!
He's strong, brutal, irresolute, and utterly lacks distinction. The
slamming of a door terrifies him; he puts back his ears and flies,
panic-stricken. Still, I've seen him kill a good-sized hen, without
making any fuss about it. For a glance of the young cat's deceitful
eyes, or right of precedence on the garden wall, for a word of double
meaning, for nothing, but the fun of the thing--I'll take my chances
with him! He'll learn that a mysterious silence can demoralize the enemy
quite as effectively as murderous cries. The low garden wall seems to me
a convenient place. Let him try his hoarse miauling in all possible
keys! May his unsightly face, and more hideous body dislocate itself in
a deceitful ataxia (for they're still at these old tricks)! I'll be
proof against it all, and merely flash the green magnetism of my
magnificent eyes upon him. His brows will fall under their persistent
insult, a shudder will run along his spine, he'll do a few steps of our
ancient war dance--forward, back, forward again. But I'll
stand--motionless as the statue of a Cat. The green witchcraft of my
gaze will strike terror and madness into my rival and soon I'll see him
writhe, utter false cries, and, as a last resource, try to balance
himself on the nape of his neck, like a forked pear tree, only to roll
over shamefully into the potato field.
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