Madness gleams in their eyes; they are beside themselves with frenzy; fear flies from their minds; they are exalted ... for now they are fighting!
Until a sudden scuffle advertises that the bailiff-cat has had enough. He tears himself loose and bolts for his life.
The big piebald has won. He shakes himself and rolls over, gives a couple of energetic licks to his paws, and carefully brushes his whiskers; then he hastens through the garden up to the farmyard, where a little later he is to be seen promenading the pigsty roof.
With alert expression and nervously vibrating tail he looks inquiringly at all trap-doors and open windows. Suddenly he gives a start; there is Grey Puss on the manure-heap beneath him.
Without a moment’s hesitation he leaps down.... It was the decisive meeting!
She had always been true to this one lover.... And yet there had been times when all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood had paid court to her. Often she had reclined on the planking with one in front of her, one behind, and three or four in the elder tree above her head.... She had been literally besieged.
But however many suitors might appear—even though they came right up from the seacoast and the fishing village—she still loved him and him alone, the great piebald hero!
He was an exceptional cat: the ears, far apart and noticeably short, were set far back on the broad head; the neck was thick and powerful, the body long and heavy. When he ran, he moved with such swiftness that he seemed to glide, and he could leap two yards without effort.
He was all possible colours—black, red, yellow, and white. A tinge of green shone in the wicked golden eyes; they sat deep in his head, so that his cheeks stuck out each side like dumplings.... And in the middle of his bristly moustache protruded a small lacerated nose, which was always bright red and covered with half-healed wounds. He was always at war....
Once he received a deep, horrid bite just under the throat, where he could not lick it. So he went to his sweetheart; she helped him....