The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel

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The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel Page 7

by Don Marquis


  Lightning Bug

  a lightning bug got

  in here the other night a

  regular hick from

  the real country he was

  awful proud of himself you

  city insects may think

  you are some punkins

  but i don t see any

  of you flashing in the dark

  like we do in

  the country all right go

  to it says i mehitabel the

  cat and that green

  spider who lives in your locker

  and two or three cockroach

  friends of mine and a

  friendly rat all gathered

  around him and urged him on

  and he lightened and

  lightened and lightened you

  don t see anything like this

  in town often he says go to it

  we told him it s a

  real treat to us and

  we nicknamed him broadway

  which pleased him

  this is the life

  he said all i

  need is a harbor

  under me to be a

  statue of liberty and

  he got so vain of

  himself i had to take

  him down a peg you ve

  made lightning for two hours

  little bug i told him

  but i don t hear

  any claps of thunder

  yet there are some men

  like that when he wore

  himself out mehitabel

  the cat ate him

  AUGUST 23

  The Next Line

  “I don’t want to appear inquisitive,” says D. S. H., “nor do I wish to embarrass archy, but as a sincere friend and a true admirer and in the cause of science I wish to learn how archy gets the roll turned for the next line? This would appear too much of a task for a being that is bald headed on the outside, even. Can it be that he has a harness rigged up for mehitabel and hitches her to the ratchet and she turns the—a—a—shall I call it trick? That would be a reasonable excuse for having that infernal cat around.”

  He braces his head against the frame of the machine, puts his hind legs against the cogwheel and kicks the thing til he hears it click into the next notch.

  DON MARQUIS

  AUGUST 25

  Be Beautiful

  well boss did it

  ever strike you that a

  hen regrets it just as

  much when they wring her

  neck as an oriole but

  nobody has any

  sympathy for a hen because

  she is not beautiful

  while every one gets

  sentimental over the

  oriole and says how

  shocking to kill the

  lovely thing this thought

  comes to my mind

  because of the earnest

  endeavor of a

  gentleman to squash me

  yesterday afternoon when i

  was riding up in the

  elevator if i had been a

  butterfly he would have

  said how did that

  beautiful thing happen to

  find its way into

  these grimy city streets do

  not harm the splendid

  creature but let it

  fly back to its rural

  haunts again beauty always

  gets the best of

  it be beautiful boss

  a thing of beauty is a

  joy forever

  be handsome boss and let

  who will be clever is

  the sad advice

  of your ugly little friend

  AUGUST 28

  Cleopatra

  boss i am disappointed in

  some of your readers they

  are always asking how does archy

  work the shift so as to get a

  new line or how does archy

  do this or do that they

  are always interested in technical

  details1 when the main question is

  whether the stuff is

  literature or not what difference does it

  make how a thing is

  produced the thought

  content is the thing the koran was written

  on the white bones of dead

  sheep picked up by mahomet in the desert

  so i have heard but

  some of it is great stuff in spite

  of that so i have heard from a little

  hot footed spider that came

  over from smyrna in a crate of figs i

  met him down on the water front but

  i don’t take much stock in his religion after

  you have migrated a few times all

  religions get to looking

  alike to you i get a slant

  at them from an angle

  not possible to many which

  reminds me i wish you would leave that new

  book of george moores2 on the floor

  mehitabel the cat and i want to

  read it i have discovered that

  mehitabels soul formerly inhabited a human also at

  least that is what mehitabel is

  claiming these days it may

  be she got jealous of my prestige anyhow

  she and i have been talking it over in a

  friendly way who were you

  mehitabel i asked her i was

  cleopatra3 once she said well i said i

  suppose you lived in a palace you bet she

  said and what lovely fish dinners we used to

  have and licked her chops mehitabel would sell

  her soul for a plate of fish any

  day i told her i thought you were

  going to say you were the favorite wife of

  the emperor valerian4

  he was some cat nip eh mehitabel but

  she did not get me

  SEPTEMBER 1

  The Queens I Have Been

  mehitabel the cat claims that

  she has a human soul

  also and has transmigrated

  from body to body and it

  may be so boss you

  remember i told you she accused

  herself of being cleopatra once i

  asked her about antony1

  anthony who she asked me are

  you thinking of that

  song about rowley and gammon and

  spinach heigho for anthony rowley2

  no i said mark antony the

  great roman the friend of

  caesar surely cleopatra you

  remember j caesar3

  listen archy she said i

  have been so many different

  people in my time and met

  so many prominent gentlemen i

  wont lie to you or stall i

  do get my dates mixed sometimes

  think of how much i have had a

  chance to forget and i have

  always made a point of not

  carrying grudges over

  from one life to the next archy

  i have been

  used something fierce in my time but

  i am no bum sport archy

  i am a free spirit archy i

  look on myself as being

  quite a romantic character oh the

  queens i have been and the

  swell feeds i have ate

  a cockroach which you are

  and a poet which you used to be

  archy couldn t understand

  my feelings at having come

  down to this i have

  had bids to elegant feeds where poets

  and cockroaches would

  neither one be mentioned without a

  laugh archy i have had

  adventures but i

  have never been an adventuress

  one life up and the next life

  down archy but always a lady
r />   through it all and a

  good mixer too always the

  life of the party archy but never

  anything vulgar always free footed

  archy never tied down to

  a job or housework yes looking

  back on it all i can say is

  i had some romantic

  lives and some elegant times i

  have seen better days archy but

  whats the use of kicking kid its

  all in the game like a gentleman

  friend of mine used to say

  toujours gai kid toujours gai he

  was an elegant cat he used

  to be a poet himself and he made up

  some elegant poetry about me and him

  lets hear it i said and

  mehitabel recited

  persian pussy from over the sea

  demure and lazy and smug and fat

  none of your ribbons and bells for me

  ours is the zest of the alley cat

  over the roofs from flat to flat

  we prance with capers corybantic

  what though a boot should break a slat

  mehitabel us for the life romantic

  we would rather be rowdy and gaunt and free

  and dine on a diet of roach and rat

  roach i said what do you

  mean roach interrupting mehitabel

  yes roach she said thats the

  way my boy friend made it up

  i climbed in amongst the typewriter

  keys for she had an excited

  look in her eyes go on mehitabel i

  said feeling safer and she

  resumed her elocution

  we would rather be rowdy and gaunt and free

  and dine on a diet of roach and rat

  than slaves to a tame society

  ours is the zest of the alley cat

  fish heads freedom a frozen sprat

  dug from the gutter with digits frantic

  is better than bores and a fireside mat

  mehitabel us for the life romantic

  when the pendant moon in the leafless tree

  clings and sways like a golden bat

  i sing its light and my love for thee

  ours is the zest of the alley cat

  missiles around us fall rat a tat tat

  but our shadows leap in a ribald antic

  as over the fences the world cries scat

  mehitabel us for the life romantic

  persian princess i dont care that

  for your pedigree traced by scribes pedantic

  ours is the zest of the alley cat

  mehitabel us for the life romantic

  aint that high brow stuff

  archy i always remembered it

  but he was an elegant gent

  even if he was a highbrow and a

  regular bohemian archy him and

  me went aboard a canal boat

  one day and he got his head into

  a pitcher of cream and couldn t get

  it out and fell overboard

  he come up once before he

  drowned toujours gai kid he

  gurgled and then sank for ever that

  was always his words archy toujours

  gai kid toujours gai i

  have known some swell gents

  in my time dearie but i canned her

  off or she would be going

  yet

  SEPTEMBER 4

  Unpunctuated Gink

  say boss i had

  a great idea last night i thought

  if i could operate a

  typewriter why not a

  linotype machine1 i went down into

  the composing room

  and started to hop from key to key

  and a guy said to me wheres

  your union card

  get out of here or you will get

  into the paper

  in a way you dont like you will

  get a nice hot bath

  in that little pot of type metal do

  you get me you may con the editorial

  staff but no unpunctuated

  gink can sling his joshbillingsgate

  around here see

  raus or i will spread you on

  the minutes and not charge

  any overtime for it

  either so i came away

  SEPTEMBER 6

  Butting These Keys with My Head

  say boss its a good

  thing for you

  that you dont pay me any wages for

  the stuff i write

  for you if you did

  i would have to have them raised all

  these strikes are getting

  me feverish and excited one of

  my long pieces in your column

  often costs me twelve or

  fifteen hours of steady

  labor and i am drowsy

  all the next day butting these

  keys with my head is no snap boss

  anything i got for it would

  be underpaying me i wish you would

  buy a pear and leave it under the

  metal typewriter case where the rats

  cant get to it

  SEPTEMBER 8

  Drunken Hornet

  well boss i had a

  great example of the corrupting

  influence of the great

  city brought to my notice recently a

  drunken hornet blew in here

  the other day and sat down in the

  corner and dozed and buzzed not a

  real sleep you know one of those wakeful

  liquor trances with the

  fuzzy talk oozing out of it to hear

  this guy mumble in his dreams he was right

  wicked my name he says is crusty bill

  i never been licked and i never will and

  then he would go half way asleep

  again nobody around here wanted to

  fight him and after a while he got

  sober enough to know how drunk he had

  been and began to cry over it and get

  sentimental about himself mine is a wasted

  life he says but i had a good

  start red liquor ruined me he says and

  sobbed tell me your story i

  said two years ago he said i was a country

  hornet young and strong and handsome i

  lived in a rusty rainspout with my

  parents and brothers and sisters and all was

  innocent and merry often in that happy

  pastoral life would we swoop down

  with joyous laughter and sting the school

  children on the village green but on an evil

  day alas i came to the city in a crate

  of peaches i found myself in a market

  near the water front alone and friendless in the

  great city its ways were strange to

  me food seemed inaccessible i thought

  that i might starve to death as i was buzzing

  down the street thinking these gloomy

  thoughts i met another hornet

  just outside a speak easy1 kid he says

  you look down in the mouth forget

  it kid i will show you how to live without

  working how i says watch me he says just

  then a drunken fly came crawling out

  of the bar room in a leisurely way my new

  found friend stung dissected and consumed that fly

  that s the way he says smacking his lips

  this is the life that was a beer fly

  wait and i will get you a cocktail fly this

  is the life i took up that life alas the

  flies around a bar room get so drunk drinking

  what is spilled that they are helpless all a

  hornet has to do is wait calmly until

  they come staggering out and there is his

  living ready made for him
at first being

  young and innocent i ate only beer flies but

  the curse of drink got me the mad life began

  to tell upon me i got so i would not eat a

  fly that was not full of some strong and heady

  liquor the lights and life got me i would

  not eat fruits and vegetables any more i scorned

  flies from a soda fountain

  they seemed flat and insipid to me

  finally i got so wicked that i

  went back to the country and got six innocent

  young hornets and brought them back

  to the city with me i started them in the

  business i debauched them and

  they caught my flies for me now i am in

  an awful situation my six hornets from the

  country have struck and set up on their own

  hook i have to catch my flies myself

  and my months of idleness and

  dissipation have spoiled my technique i

  can t catch a fly now unless he is dead drunk

  what is to become of me alas the curse

  of alcoholic beverages especially with each

  meal well i said it is a sad story

  bill and of a sort only too

  common in this day of ours it is he says i

  have the gout in my stinger so bad

  that i scream with pain every time i spear

  a fly i got into a safe place on the

  inside of the typewriter and yelled out at him

  my advice is suicide bill all the time

  he had been pitying himself my sympathy had

  been with the flies

  SEPTEMBER 12

  Cheer Up Cheer Up

  i can t see for the

  life of me what there is

  about crickets that makes people

  call them jolly they

  are the parrots of the insect race

  crying cheer up cheer up

  cheer up over and

  over again till you want to

  swat them i hate one of these

  grinning skipping smirking

  senseless optimists worse

  than i do a cynic or a

  pessimist there was

  one in here the other day i was

  feeling pretty well

  and pleased with the world when

  he started that confounded

  cheer up cheer up cheer up stuff

 

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