Complete Poems and Plays (24 page)

You ought to know Mr. Mistoffelees!

The Original Conjuring Cat —

(There can be no doubt about that).

Please listen to me and don’t scoff. All his

Inventions are off his own bat.

There’s no such Cat in the metropolis;

He holds all the patent monopolies

For performing surprising illusions

And creating eccentric confusions.

At prestidigitation

   And at legerdemain

He’ll defy examination

   And deceive you again.

The greatest magicians have something to learn

From Mr. Mistoffelees’ Conjuring Turn.

Presto!

Away we go!

   And we all say:
OH
!

      Well I never!

      Was there ever

      A Cat so clever

          As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!

He is quiet and small, he is black

From his ears to the tip of his tail;

He can creep through the tiniest crack

He can walk on the narrowest rail.

He can pick any card from a pack,

He is equally cunning with dice;

He is always deceiving you into believing

That he’s only hunting for mice.

He can play any trick with a cork

   Or a spoon and a bit of fish-paste;

If you look for a knife or a fork

   And you think it is merely misplaced —

You have seen it one moment, and then it is
gawn
!

But you’ll find it next week lying out on the lawn.

And we all say:
OH
!

   Well I never!

   Was there ever

   A Cat so clever

       As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!

His manner is vague and aloof,

You would think there was nobody shyer —

But his voice has been heard on the roof

When he was curled up by the fire.

And he’s sometimes been heard by the fire

When he was about on the roof —

(At least we all
heard
that somebody purred)

Which is incontestable proof

Of his singular magical powers:

   And I have known the family to call

Him in from the garden for hours,

   While he was asleep in the hall.

And not long ago this phenomenal Cat

Produced
seven
kittens
right out of a hat!

And we all said:
OH
!

   Well I never!

   Did you ever

   Know a Cat so clever

      As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!

Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw —

For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.

He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:

For when they reach the scene of crime —
Macavity’
s
not
there
!

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.

His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,

And when you reach the scene of crime —
Macavity
’
s
not
there
!

You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air —

But I tell you once and once again,
Macavity
’
s
not
there
!

Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;

You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.

His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;

His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.

He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;

And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.

You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square —

But when a crime’s discovered, then
Macavity
’
s
not
there
!

He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)

And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s.

And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled.

Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,

Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair —

Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing!
Macavity
’
s
not
there
!

And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray,

Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,

There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair —

But it’s useless to investigate —
Macavity
’
s
not
there
!

And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:

‘It
must
have been Macavity!’ — but he’s a mile away.

You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,

Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.

He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:

At whatever time the deed took place —
MACAVITY WASN’T THERE
!

And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known

(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)

Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time

Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.

His name, as I ought to have told you before,

Is really Asparagus. That’s such a fuss

To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.

His coat’s very shabby, he’s thin as a rake,

And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.

Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats —

But no longer a terror to mice and to rats.

For he isn’t the Cat that he was in his prime;

Though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time.

And whenever he joins his friends at their club

(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)

He loves to regale them, if someone else pays,

With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.

For he once was a Star of the highest degree —

He has acted with Irving, he’s acted with Tree.

And he likes to relate his success on the Halls,

Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.

But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell,

Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

‘I have played’, so he says, ‘every possible part.

And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.

I’d extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag,

And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag.

I knew how to act with my back and my tail;

With an hour of rehearsal, I never could fail.

I’d a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts,

Whether I took the lead, or in character parts.

I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell;

When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell.

In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,

And I once understudied Dick Whittington’s Cat.

But my grandest creation, as history will tell,

Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.’

Then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin,

He will tell how he once played a part in
East
Lynne.

At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat,

When some actor suggested the need for a cat.

He once played a Tiger — could do it again —

Which an Indian Colonel pursued down a drain.

And he thinks that he still can, much better than most,

Produce blood-curdling noises to bring on the Ghost.

And he once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire,

To rescue a child when a house was on fire.

And he says: ‘Now, these kittens, they do not get trained

As we did in the days when Victoria reigned.

They never get drilled in a regular troupe,

And they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop.’

And he’ll say, as he scratches himself with his claws,

‘Well, the Theatre’s certainly not what it was.

These modern productions are all very well,

But there’s nothing to equal, from what I hear tell,

    That moment of mystery

    When I made history

As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.’

Bustopher Jones is
not
skin and bones —

In fact, he’s remarkably fat.

He doesn’t haunt pubs — he has eight or nine clubs,

For he’s the St. James’s Street Cat!

He’s the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street

In his coat of fastidious black:

No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers

Or such an impeccable back.

In the whole of St. James’s the smartest of names is

The name of this Brummell of Cats;

And we’re all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to

By Bustopher Jones in white spats!

His visits are occasional to the
Senior
Educational

And it is against the rules

For any one Cat to belong both to that

And the
Joint
Superior
Schools.

For a similar reason, when game is in season

He is found, not at
Fox’s,
but
Blimp’s
;

But he’s frequently seen at the gay
Stage
and
Screen

Which is famous for winkles and shrimps.

In the season of venison he gives his ben’son

To the
Pothunter’s
succulent bones;

And just before noon’s not a moment too soon

To drop in for a drink at the
Drones.

When he’s seen in a hurry there’s probably curry

At the
Siamese
— or at the
Glutton
;

If he looks full of gloom then he’s lunched at the
Tomb

On cabbage, rice pudding and mutton.

So, much in this way, passes Bustopher’s day —

At one club or another he’s found.

It can be no surprise that under our eyes

He has grown unmistakably round.

He’s a twenty-five pounder, or I am a bounder,

And he’s putting on weight every day:

But he’s so well preserved because he’s observed

All his life a routine, so he’d say.

Or, to put it in rhyme: ‘I shall last out my time’

Is the word for this stoutest of Cats.

It must and it shall be Spring in Pall Mall

While Bustopher Jones wears white spats!