by Don Marquis
new deals and old deals and square deals and ideals
as the spiders wrote it
dear boss i met a spider
the other day in a museum
who gave me a good deal to think
about concerning governmental problems
this spider came of a long line of spiders
who had for thousands of years
inhabited the egyptian pyramids
and the american branch of the family
came over in a sarcophagus
along with the mummy
of one of the pharaohs
the ancient world saw all sorts
of governmental experiments
he said including monarchies
republics communes despotisms
democracies and everything else
but in the end the spiders got them all
thousands and thousands of years of
reforms and recoveries and depressions
and new deals and old deals
and square deals and crooked deals
and ideals and idealists
are wound around with spider webs
all the history of human kind
is written in the clots and filaments
and quaint patterns and ideographs
of spiders
it has been my observation
and experience and that of my family
that nothing human works out well
if you could read the writing
in the spider webs
you could understand the history of
human civilizations and understand
that man always fails because he
is not honest enough to succeed
there are not enough men
continuously on the square with
themselves and with other men
the system of government does not matter
so much the thing that matters
is what men do with any kind of system
they happen to have
many a time a strand of cobweb
has seemed to choke a burly empire to death
but the fact is that it was strangling anyhow
it was hanging itself in its own
crookedness and incompetence
there is no hope for human beings
unless they learn to organize their
social order as efficiently as spiders do
to say nothing of ants and bees
and coral insects
archy
a scarab
A cockroach seventy-four years old has been found in a safe in Atchison—that is, Atchison claims that it is seventy-four years old. We referred this matter to Archy and he informed us:
i doubt if that
is really a cockroach
it sounds to me
more like an
egyptian scarab
cockroaches do not live
that long as a rule
i am the oldest
cockroach i know
and i am only sixty-three come
next michaelmas that is
in my present
incarnation
sell the glasses and make an additional pro fix
archy hunts a job
well boss i went up
to the circus
the other day
and tried to hire
out what do you
want they asked me a
job as an animal
or a job as an artist
an artist said i
what can you do they
said i can
walk the wire i said
either tight or slack
and i can swing
head downward from the
flying trapeze we do not
doubt it they said
but who could see
you at a distance
every one said i if you
gave them telescopes
and opera glasses it
is too expensive said they
to furnish opera
glasses to every one
just to see a cockroach
perform not at all
i said you sell the
glasses and make an
additional profit
you go out and hire
yourself out to a
trained flea outfit
said they we cannot use
you i consider it
an insult i replied to
be classed with
fleas you should consider
it a compliment said they
another word from you
i said and i
wrill die in a barrel
of your lemonade and
queer your show
and with this threat
the interview closed
archy
archy craves amusement
well boss
i am getting the
sandwich now but man
cannot live by buns alone
as the old soak will
learn some day what i want
is amusement i want
to go to the theater at least
once a week from now on
theaters are made
so that those who want to forget
will remember
and those who want to remember
will forget
but i think we need them
as much for fun as
for uplift
archy
fate is unfair
in many places here and
there
i think that fate
is quite unfair
yon centipede upon
the floor
can boast of
tootsies by the score
consider my
distressing fix
my feet are limited
to six
did i a hundred
feet possess
would all that glorious
footfulness
enable me
to stagger less
when i am
overcome by heat
or if i had
a hundred feet
would i
careering oer the floor
stagger
proportionately more
well i suppose
the mind serene
will not tell
destiny its mean
the truly
philosophic mind
will use
such feet as it can find
and follow calmly
fast or slow
the feet it has
where eer they go
archy
at the zoo
speaking of the aquarium i
was up at the zoo the
other day and when i saw all
the humans staring at
the animals i grew thankful that
i am an insect and
not an animal it must be
very embarrassing to
be looked at all the time by an
assorted lot of human beings and
commented upon as if
one were a freak the animals find the
humans just as strange and silly looking
as the humans find the
animals but they
cannot say so and the fact that
they cannot say so
makes them quite angry the leopard
told me that was one thing that
made the wild cat wild as for
himself he says there is
one gink that comes every day and looks
and looks and looks at him i
think said the leopard he
is waiting to see if i ever really do
change my spots
archy
no true friend
listen to me that
fellow who was in to see
you the other day bulling you
about your stuff
is no true friend you got
so proud of yourself on
account of what he
said you gave him a copy
of your book and
autographed it for him i thought
he was a shine so
i hopped into the
cuff of his trousers and
went out with him
he sold that book for
ten cents at a second
hand place and
treated himself to a
drink on the river front
he cursed because if
you had not written your name
in the book he might
have got fifteen cents for
it he said you are an
easy mark
archy
confessions of a glutton
after i ate my dinner then i ate
part of a shoe
i found some archies by a bathroom pipe
and ate them too
i ate some glue
i ate a bone that had got nice and ripe
six weeks buried in the ground
i ate a little mousie that i found
i ate some sawdust from the cellar floor
it tasted sweet
i ate some outcast meat
and some roach paste by the pantry door
and then the missis had some folks to tea
nice folks who petted me
and so i ate
cakes from a plate
i ate some polish that they use
for boots and shoes
and then i went back to the missis swell tea party
i guess i must have eat too hearty
of something maybe cake
for then came the earthquake
you should have seen the missis face
and when the boss came in she said
no wonder that dog hangs his head
he knows hes in disgrace
i am a well intentioned little pup
but sometimes things come up
to get a little dog in bad
and now i feel so very very sad
but the boss said never mind old scout
time wears disgraces out
pete the pup
literary jealousy
dear boss i dont see
why you keep that ugly
boston bull terrier pete
hanging around
eating his head off
in these hard times
he is nothing but a parasite
and he has no morals
he has tried several times
to murder me
archy
When this ill-natured remark was read to Pete the Pup he ambled over to the typewriter, got up on his hind legs and pawed out the following reply:
i coNSIder It beneath
my Dignity to reply
to The sLanders of a Jealous
iNsect who does not
have a pUnctuaTION mark
in a baRRel of him
he is MereLY an archy
i am against anarchy
I AM A CAPITALIST
i wish to remind you however
that ONE STORY WHICH
YOU SOLD ABOUT ME BROUGHT
IN ENOUGH MONEY TO FEED ME
FOR FIVE YEARS AND I DENY
THAT I AM A PARASITE
moreover the time is
coming when you have to choose
between ME AND mehitabel
that lousy cat and when i say
LOusy i do not Mean the word
in iTS sLang SENSE
I mean Lousy in the sense of
a CAT wHo has LICE
pete the pup
pete at the seashore
i ran along the yellow sand
and made the sea gulls fly
i chased them down the waters edge
i chased them up the sky
i ran so hard i ran so fast
i left the spray behind
i chased the flying flecks of foam
and i outran the wind
an airplane sailing overhead
climbed when it heard me bark
i yelped and leapt right at the sun
until the sky grew dark
some little children on the beach
threw sticks and ran with me
o master let us go again
and play beside the sea
pete the pup
pete s theology
god made seas to play beside
and rugs to cover dogs
god made cars for holidays
and beetles under logs
god made kitchens so thered be
dinners to eat and scraps
god made beds so pups could crawl
under them for naps
god made license numbers so theyd find
lost pups and bring them home
god made garbage buckets too
to pry in when you roam
god made tennis shoes to chew
and here and there a hat
but i cant see why god should make
mehitabel the cat
pete the pup
and the cops watching all the time
pete petitions
when we are in the city we must walk
on streets all made of stone
with me upon a leash
and even in the park
i must not frisk or lark
and never run alone
without a muzzle on my jaws
and cops are watching all the time
lest i dig with my claws
and break some of their laws
and if i leap and bark
they act like i was bad
master i want some little towns
like we saw from the car
with meadows all about
where children romp and shout
brooks winding in and out
and nice bugs under stones
gardens to bury bones
and room to rip and race
and birds and cats to chase
trash cans to be tipped over
and grass to lie in and deep clover
and fence posts everywhere
no muzzles and no leashes there
and lots and lots of trees
o master buy a little town
where we can settle down
today o master please
buy me a little town
and a new rubber ball
and an ocean and thats all
right now o master please
pete the pup
pete s holiday
we found a hill all green with grass
and cool with clover bloom
where bees go booming as they pass
boom zoom boom
my master took me in the car
and high upon the hill
we lay and stared up at the clouds
until the day grew chill
and moths came floating from the sky
and shadows stroked the ground
and we lay still and stared and stared
and what do you think we found
we found a star between the clouds
upon the edge of night
but when i jumped and barked at it
it hid itself in fright
then we drove back to town again
with my head on his lap
it tires a dog to scare a star
and then he needs a nap
my master is the same as god
when he thumps with his hand
people bring us hamburg steaks
at any eating stand
o master let us go right now
and find another star
and eat another hamburg steak
at a refreshment bar
pete the pup
a radical flea
dear boss i wish you would speak
to that lazy good for
nothing
boston bull terrier of yours
whom you call pete
pete has got the idea lately
that he is a great hunter
i saw him stage a dramatic battle
with a grass hopper yesterday
and he nearly won it too
and this morning he made an entirely
unprovoked attack on me
it was only by retreating into
the mechanism of your typewriter
that i saved my life
some day i will set mehitabel on him
she can lick any bull terrier who ever lived
she will make ribbons out of that pete
and they wont be dog show ribbons either
as for his pretensions to being a thoroughbred
i take no stock in them
i asked a flea of his about it
recently and the flea said
i doubt peters claim to aristocracy
very much he does not look like
an aristocrat to me
and more than that he does not taste like one
i have bit some pretty swell dogs
in my time and i ought to know
if pete is an aristocrat
then i am a bengal tiger
but in hard times like these
a flea has got to put up with
any kind of dog he can get hold of
back in 1928 when things were booming
i wouldnt look at anything
but a dachshund with a pedigree
as long as himself
if the government doesnt start
to putting out a better brand of dogs
at federal expense
a lot of us fleas are going
to turn communist in a big way
if there was any justice in this country
they would give us russian wolf hounds
i find a lot of discontent among
insects in these days
archy
archy and the labor troubles
all right boss
i knuckle under
if you will not
pay me anything
for what i write
then you will not
i will return to the job
just to keep james the spider
out of it but all the
same it is cruel of you
to play upon the
jealousies
and susceptibilities
of artists in that fashion
i do not know how
you expect me to be
merry and bright
with this dull ache
of disillusionment at my