“To what end?” asked the Wheel.
“Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume—gassing is the proper word.”
“It would be,” said the Cat, sniffing.
“That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators are exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you round and round again.”
“The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go whacking round and round for ever,” said the Cat.
“In order,” the Rat said, “that you may throw raw and unnecessary illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which we shall—er—have always with us. At the same time you will riotously neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life.”
“Yes, Life,” said the Cat, “with its dim delicious half-tones and veiled indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters, and dizzying leaps—its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning star, and its melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall.”
“Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual,” said the laughing Waters. “We sha’n’t interfere with you.”
“On the tiles, forsooth!” hissed the Cat.
“Well, that’s what it amounts to,” persisted the Waters. “We see a good deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job.”