The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck

Some time after, the Children and their friends met at the first dawn to go to the Palace of Night, where they hoped to find the Blue Bird. Several of the party failed to answer to their names when the roll was called. Milk, for whom any sort of excitement was bad, was keeping her room. Water sent an excuse: she was accustomed always to travel in a bed of moss, was already half-dead with fatigue and was afraid of falling ill. As for Light, she had been on bad terms with Night since the world began; and Fire, as a relation, shared her dislike. Light kissed the Children and told Tylô the way, for it was his business to lead the expedition; and the little band set out upon its road.

You can imagine dear Tylô trotting ahead, on his hind legs, like a little man, with his nose in the air, his tongue dangling down his chin, his front paws folded across his chest. He fidgets, sniffs about, runs up and down, covering twice the ground without minding how tired it makes him. He is so full of his own importance that he disdains the temptations on his path: he neglects the rubbish heaps, pays no attention to anything he sees and cuts all his old friends.