burlesque, _la charge_, as the
French say, has hitherto been confined to paper, to the pen and pencil.
Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce it into statuary. For this
purpose I have invented a peculiar plastic compound which you will permit
me not to divulge. That's my secret, signore! It's as light, you
perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabaster! I frankly confess that
I really pride myself as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity
as upon the other element of novelty in my creations--my types. What do
you say to my types, signore? The idea is bold; does it strike you as
happy? Cats and monkeys--monkeys and cats--all human life is there!
Human life, of course, I mean, viewed with the eye of the satirist! To
combine sculpture and satire, signore, has been my unprecedented
ambition. I flatter myself that I have not egregiously failed."

As this jaunty Juvenal of the chimney-piece delivered himself of his
persuasive allocution, he took up his little groups successively from the
table, held them aloft, turned them about, rapped them with his knuckles,
and gazed at them lovingly, with his head on one side. They consisted
each of a cat and a monkey, fantastically draped, in some preposterously
sentimental conjunction. They exhibited a certain sameness of motive,
and illustrated chiefly the different phases of what, in delicate terms,
may be called gallantry and coquetry; but they were strikingly clever and
expressive, and were at once very perfect cats and monkeys and very
natural men and women. I confess, however, that they failed to amuse me.
I was doubtless not in a mood to enjoy them, for they seemed to me
peculiarly cynical and vulgar. Their imitative felicity was revolting.
As I looked askance at the complacent little artist, brandishing them
between finger and thumb and caressing them with an amorous eye, he
seemed to me himself little more than an exceptionally intelligent ape. I
mustered an admiring grin, however, and he blew another blast. "My
figures are studied from life! I have a little menagerie of monkeys
whose frolics I contemplate by the hour. As for the cats, one has only
to look out of one's back window! Since I have begun to examine these
expressive little brutes, I have made many profound observations.
Speaking, signore, to a man of imagination, I may say that my little
designs are not without a philosophy of their own. Truly, I don't know
whether the cats and mon