Their attitude towards any action I think is reasonably predictable is one of wary observation, as if at any moment the laws governing the angle of reflection for that ball, along with the gravity which bends its path into a parabola, might decide to change. But they also seem to feel that the governor of those laws is somewhat good-natured; that He will change if he likes, but in a laughing, cheerful way. They view the ball as an agent, or the envoy of one.
Of course, when the dogs are outside our door, the impenetrability of which my cats have painfully established, the governor of those laws, and their mutability, is a rather more terrible thing. Experience is no comfort then.
