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."
"And--but I fear I speak to deaf ears--do they never impress you?" said
the Wheel.
"Enormously," said the Waters. "We have already learned six refined
synonyms for loafing."
"But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
wholly animal--ah--rumination of bovine minds and the discerning, well-
apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?"
"Oh, yes.
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