"Don't you let your dog eat up my cat!" she cried out, angrily, to the black-haired girl opposite.
"Don't you let your cat eat up my dog, then!" was the immediate response, delivered with enthusiasm equalling Dolly's own.
"Cats don't eat dogs!"
"Neither do dogs eat cats!"
"Well, these will eat each other! Oh! look, we must get them apart!"
The battle was of the pitched variety, whatever that may mean. But it is a phrase used to describe the most intense and desperate battles of history, and surely this was one of them. Dolly Fayre had no idea that gentle little Flossy had so much fight in her small white body, and Dotty Rose never dreamed that Blot was such a fire-eater under his curly black coat.
Really alarmed for their pets, the two girls went nearer to the agile warriors, who now looked like an indistinct moving-picture film that was going too fast.
"Come here, Blot!" Dotty cried, in most commanding tones.
"Come here, Flossy!" Dolly called, in coaxing accents.
Insubordination ensued on both sides.