'E's all'ot sand an' ginger when alive, An''e's generally shammin' when'e's dead.

This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.

I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!

I wasted my substance, I know I did, on riotous living, so I did, but there's nothing on record to show I did more than my betters have done.

Both triumph and disaster are impostors.

I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains - I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar cane; I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs. I will go out until the day, until the morning break - Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress; I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake. I will revisit my lost love and playmates masterless!

The cat will keep his side of the bargain. He will kill mice, and he will be kind to babies when he is in the house, just so long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up on the Wet Wild trees or on the Wet Wild roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.