The Best of Archy and Mehitabel (9 page)

boss i got

a message from

mehitabel the cat

the other day

brought me by

a cockroach

she asks for our help

it seems she is being

held at ellis

island while an

investigation is made

of her morals

she left the country

and now it looks as

if she might not

be able to get

back in again

she cannot see

why they are

investigating

her morals she says

wotthehellbill she says

i never claimed

i had any morals

she has always regarded

morals as an unnecessary

complication in life

her theory is

that they take up room that might

better be devoted to

something more interesting

live while you are alive

she says and postpone

morality to the hereafter

everything in its place

is my rule she says

but i am liberal she

says i do not give

a damn how moral other

people are i never try

to interfere with them

in fact i prefer them

moral they furnish

a background for my

vivacity in the meantime

it looks as if she

would have to swim

if she gets ashore and

the water is cold

archy

well boss mehitabel the cat

has turned up again after a long

absence she declines

to explain her movements but she

drops out dark hints of a

most melodramatic nature ups and downs

archy she says always ups and downs

that is what my life has

been one day lapping

up the cream de la cream and the

next skirmishing for

fish heads in an alley but

toujours gai archy toujours gai no

matter how the luck broke i have had a

most romantic life archy talk

about reincarnation and transmigration

archy why i could tell you things of who

i used to be archy that would make

your eyes stick out like a snails one

incarnation queening it with a tarara on

my bean as cleopatra archy and

the next being abducted as a poor

working girl but toujours gai archy toujours

gai and finally my soul has migrated to

the body of a cat and not even a persian or

a maltese at that but where have you been

lately mehitabel i asked her never mind

archy she says dont ask no questions

and i will tell no lies all i

got to say to keep away

from the movies have you been in the

movies mehitabel i asked her never mind

archy she says never mind all i got to

say is keep away from those

movie camps theres some mighty

nice people and animals connected with them

and then again theres some that aint i

say nothing against anybody archy i am

used to ups and downs no matter

how luck breaks its toujours gai

with me all i got to say

archy is that sometimes a cat

comes along that is a perfect gentleman and

then again some of the slickest furred ones

aint if i was a cat that was the

particular pet of a movie star archy and

slept on a silk cushion and had

white chinese rats especially

imported for my meals i would try to live

up to all that luxury and be a

gentleman in word and deed mehitabel i said

have you had another unfortunate romance i am

making no complaint against any

one archy she says wottell archy wottell even

if the breaks is bad my motto is toujours gai

but to slip out nights and sing and frolic

under the moon with a lady and then cut her

dead in the day time before your rich

friends and see her batted out of a studio

with a broom without raising a paw for her

aint what i call being a

gentleman archy and i am

a lady archy and i know a gentleman when

i meet one but wottell archy wottell toujours

gai is the word never say die

archy its the cheerful heart that wins all i

got to say is that if i ever get that

fluffy haired slob down on the

water front when some of my gang

is around he will wish he had

watched his step i aint vindictive archy i

dont hold grudges no lady does but i

got friends archy that maybe would take it

up for me theres a black cat with one ear

sliced off lives down around old slip is a

good pal of mine i wouldnt want to

see trouble start archy no real lady

wants a fight to start over her but

sometimes she cant hold her friends back

all i got to say is that boob with his silver

bells around his neck better sidestep old slip

well archy lets not talk any more about my troubles

does the boss ever leave any pieces of sandwich

in the waste paper basket any more honest

archy i would will myself to a furrier for a

pair of oysters i could even she says eat you

archy she said it like a joke but there

was a kind of a pondering look in her eyes

so i just crawled into the inside of

your typewriter behind the wires it

seemed safer let her hustle for a

mouse if she is as hungry as all that

but i am afraid she never will she

is too romantic to work

archy

boss i have seen mehitabel the cat

again and she has just been through

another matrimonial experience

she said in part as follows

i am always the sap archy

always the good natured simp

always believing in the good intentions

of those deceitful tom cats

always getting married at leisure

and repenting in haste

its wrong for an artist to marry

a free spirit has gotta

live her own life

about three months ago along came a

maltese tom with a black heart and

silver bells on his neck and says

mehitabel be mine

are you abducting me percy i asks him

no said he i am offering marriage

honorable up to date

companionate marriage

listen i said if its marriage

theres a catch in it somewheres

ive been married again and again

and its been my experience

that any kind of marriage

means just one dam kitten after another

and domesticity always ruins my art

but this companionate marriage says he

is all assets and no liabilities

its something new mehitabel

be mine mehitabel and i promise

a life of open ice boxes

creamed fish and catnip

well i said wotthehell kid

if its something new i will take a

chance theres a dance or two

in the old dame yet

i will try any kind of marriage once

you look like a gentleman to me percy

well archy i was wrong as usual

i wont go into details for i aint

any tabloid newspaper

but the way it worked out was i rustled

grub for that low lived bum for two

months and when the kittens came

he left me flat and he says these

offsprings dissolves the wedding

i am always the lady archy

i didn t do anything vulgar

i removed his left eye with one claw

and i says to him if i wasn t an

aristocrat id rip you

from gehenna to duodenum

the next four flusher that

says marriage to me

i may really lose my temper

trial marriage or companionate

marriage or old fashioned american

plan three meals a day marriage

with no thursdays off

they are all the same thing

marriage is marriage

and you cant laugh that curse off

archy

if all the bugs

in all the worlds

twixt earth and betelgoose

should sharpen up

their little stings

and turn their feelings loose

they soon would show

all human beans

in saturn

earth

or mars

their relative significance

among the spinning stars

man is so proud

the haughty simp

so hard for to approach

and he looks down

with such an air

on spider

midge

or roach

the supercilious silliness

of this poor wingless bird

is cosmically comical

and stellarly absurd

his scutellated occiput

has holes somewhere inside

and there no doubt

two pints or so

of scrambled brains reside

if all the bugs

of all the stars

should sting him on the dome

they might pierce through

that osseous rind

and find the brains at home

and in the convolutions lay

an egg with fancies fraught

which

germinating rapidly

might turn into a thought

might turn into the thought

that men

and insects are the same

both transient flecks

of starry dust

that out of nothing came

the planets are

what atoms are

and neither more nor less

man s feet have grown

so big that he

forgets his littleness

the things he thinks

are only things

that insects always knew

the things he does

are stunts that we

don t have to think to do

he spent a score

of centuries

in getting feeble wings

which we instinctively

acquired

with other trivial things

the day is coming

very soon

when man and all his race

must cast their silly

pride aside

and take the second place

i ll take the bugs

of all the stars

and tell them of my plan

and fling them with

their myriad stings

against the tyrant man

dear boss this outburst

is the result

of a personal insult

as so much verse always is

maybe you know how

that is yourself

i dropped into an irish

stew in a restaurant