The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

maternal instinct next to my art

  as a modern dancer mother love is

  the strongest thing in me

  it is so strong that sometimes life seems to me

  to be just one damned kitten

  after another

  but of course if i get back to broadway

  without any kittens i will have more

  freedom for my art

  and can live my own life again

  then she began to practice

  dance steps among the cactus

  casting fond eyes at a coyote

  boss i am afraid

  that mehitabels morals are no better

  than before she struck hollywood

  after all she remarked kittens

  are but passing episodes in the life

  of a great artist i may have been

  given the bums rush from six auto camps

  in three days but hells bells

  i am still a lady

  the loss of that kitten is a terrible grief

  but an aristocrat and an artist

  must bear up toujours gai

  is my motto toujours gai

  theres life in the old dame yet

  and with that she cut a caper with

  the heat at one hundred and forty

  degrees fahrenheit

  in new mexico where she is gadding about

  artists shouldnt have offspring

  A bulletin from Archy the Cockroach, who started out last July to hitch-hike from Hollywood to New York with Mehitabel the Cat and Mehitabel’s seven platinum-blonde kittens:

  had a great break boss

  got a ride on the running board of a car

  and caught up with mehitabel

  in new mexico where she is gadding about

  with a coyote friend

  i asked her where the kittens were

  kittens said mehitabel kittens

  with a puzzled look on her face

  why goodness gracious i seem to remember

  that i did have some kittens

  i hope nothing terrible has happened

  to the poor little things but if something has

  i suppose they are better off

  an artist like me shouldnt really

  have offspring it handicaps her career

  archy i want you to meet my boy friend

  cowboy bill the coyote i call him

  i am trying to get him to come to new york

  with me and do a burlesque turn

  isnt he handsome i said tactfully that he looked

  very distinguished to me and all bill said

  was nerts insect nerts

  archy

  could such things be

  A bulletin from Archy, who, with Mehitabel the Cat, started out last July to hitch-hike from Hollywood to New York:

  well boss here i am back in new york

  i got a great break

  after walking for months through arizona

  i caught a ride on an airplane

  and the first person i saw here was mehitabel

  who had bummed her way

  in a tourist trailer

  she is living in shinbone alley

  on second hand fish heads she drags away

  from the east side markets

  and she has some new kittens

  they are the most peculiar kittens i ever saw

  not the ones she left hollywood with

  months ago or anything like them

  there are five of these new ones

  and they dont mew

  they make a noise more like barking

  i thought of that coyote she was so friendly with

  in the southwest but i did not ask

  any tactless questions

  boss do you suppose such things could be

  archy

  trying to get milk

  what does a trouper care

  A bulletin from Archy, who started weeks ago hitch-hiking cross the country from California to New York, accompanied by Mehitabel and the seven platinum-blonde kittens she acquired in Hollywood:

  still somewhere in arizona

  sometime in october

  sand storm struck us yesterday

  i peeped out from under a rock

  and saw mehitabel dancing

  and singing as follows

  ive got a rock in my eye

  and a scorpion in my gizzard

  but what does an artist care

  for a bit of red hot blizzard

  my feet are full of cactus

  there are blisters in my hair

  but howl storm howl

  what does a trouper care

  i got a thirst like a mummy

  i got a desert chill

  but cheerio my deario

  theres a dance in the old dame still

  two more of the kittens disappeared

  well i got three left said mehitabel

  poor little dears i am afraid

  they will never reach broadway

  unless they learn how to get milk

  from the cactus plants damn them

  their appetites are spoiling my figure

  a lot of encouragement a dancer gets

  from her family i must say

  any other artist i know would tell them

  to go wean themselves on alkali

  and be done with them but my great weakness

  is my maternal instinct

  boss i made nearly a mile today

  before the sand storm blew me back

  i hear texas is a thousand miles across

  archy

  be damned mother dear

  Mehitabel the Cat is still living in Shinbone Alley with the strange kittens which arrived shortly after Mehitabel’s arrival from the Southwest. Archy, the Cockroach, says … but let him tell it:

  one of mehitabels kittens

  licked a bull pup yesterday

  and she is very proud

  but hang them she says

  i cant teach them to fight like cats

  i told one of them yesterday

  when i left home

  i might bring him back

  a pretty neck ribbon

  if he was a good kitten

  and he answered me in a strange voice

  ribbon be damned mother dear

  what i want is a brass collar

  with spikes on it

  and another one whom i had been

  calling pussy says to me

  pussy be damned mother dear

  call me fido and another one

  who got hold of a ball of catnip

  complained it made him

  sick at the stomach he says

  catnip be damned mother dear

  what i want is a bone to gnaw

  what do you suppose makes them

  act so strange archy

  do you suppose i answered her

  that prenatal influence

  could have anything to do with it

  perhaps that is it

  she replied innocently

  i seem to remember

  that i was chased through

  arizona and new mexico

  by a coyote or did i dream it

  i will say you were chased

  i told her my advice

  is to rent them out

  to a dog and pony show

  archy

  the artist always pays

  boss i visited mehitabel last night

  at her home in shinbone alley

  she sat on a heap of frozen refuse

  with those strange new kittens she has

  frolicking around her

  and sang a little song at the cold moon

  which went like this

  i have had my ups i have had my downs

  i never was nobodys pet

  i got a limp in my left hind leg

  but theres life in the old dame yet

  my first boy friend was a maltese tom

  quite handsomely constructed


  i trusted him but the first thing i knew

  i was practically abducted

  then i took up with a persian prince

  a cat by no means plain

  and that exotic son of a gun

  abducted me again

  what chance has an innocent kitten got

  with the background of a lady

  when feline blighters betray her trust

  in ways lowlifed and shady

  my next boy friend was a yellow bum

  who loafed down by the docks

  i rustled that gonifs rats for him

  and he paid me with hard knocks

  i have had my ups i have had my downs

  i have led a helluva life

  it was all these abductions unsettled my mind

  for being somebodys wife

  today i am here tomorrow flung

  on a scow bound down the bay

  but wotthehell o wotthehell

  i m a lady thats toujours gai

  my next boy friend was a theater cat

  a kind of a backstage pet

  he taught me to dance and get me right

  theres a dance in the old dame yet

  my next boy friend he left me flat

  with a family and no milk

  and i says to him as i lifted his eye

  i ll learn ye how to bilk

  i have had my ups i have had my downs

  i have been through the mill

  but in spite of a hundred abductions kid

  i am a lady still

  my next friend wore a ribbon and bells

  but he laughed and left me broke

  and i said as i sliced him into scraps

  laugh off this little joke

  some day my guts will be fiddle strings

  but my ghost will dance while they play

  for they cant take the pep from the old girls soul

  and i am toujours gai

  my heart has been broken a thousand times

  i have had my downs and ups

  but the queerest thing ever happened to me

  is these kittens as turned out pups

  o wotthehell o toujours gai

  i never had time to fret

  i danced to whatever tune was played

  and theres life in the old dame yet

  i have had my ups i have had my downs

  i have been through the mill

  but i said when i clawed that coyotes face

  thank god i am a lady still

  and then she added looking at those

  extraordinary kittens of hers

  archy i wish you would

  take a little trip up to the zoo

  and see if they have any department there

  for odd sizes and new species

  i got to find a home

  for these damned freaks somewhere

  poor little things my heart bleeds for them

  it agonizes my maternal instinct

  one way or another an artist always pays

  archy

  yours for rum crime and riot archy

  a word from little archibald

  thank you

  for the mittens

  socks and

  muffler for me

  knitted out of

  frogs hair by one

  of my admirers which

  you so kindly

  forwarded i suppose

  the reason

  i got them was that

  they were too

  small for you

  to wear yourself

  yours for rum

  crime and riot

  archy

  archy does his part

  the kings of babylon are covered with fleas

  prophecies

  the papers are full of the prophecies

  of preachers professors and laymen

  to the effect that this human civilization

  is on the way out

  and it looks to an insect such as i

  very possible

  the only thing i wonder about

  is why the human species calls it a civilization

  human society has never been

  as well organized as a hill of ants

  or a hive of bees

  and all the ancient sites of civilization

  are now in the possession of insects

  who are far superior in organization

  and in their ethical practices

  spiders bite the mummified feet

  of the pharaohs of egypt

  and the kings of babylon are covered with fleas

  which they are too defunct to feel

  archy the cockroach

  repeal

  we have had repeal for some months now

  and a lot of devoted patriots

  have been trying with all their might

  to drink the country back into prosperity

  and it may have made some improvement

  but i have the feeling that something else

  will have to be done as well

  i am ashamed to say that i dont

  feel any surer of what it is

  that has to be done

  than the economists and financiers

  and other experts and wizards who are

  at the present moment not doing it

  but i do have the feeling that if the people

  of the whole world were let alone

  and there were no trade restrictions of any sort

  or artificial barriers

  put between them by their governments

  they would speedily find the answer

  archy the cockroach

  the ballyhoo

  every time a european dictator

  gets at the end of his string

  and cant think of any other ballyhoo

  to attract the attention of the people

  he begins another attack on the jews

  centuries of persecution

  have so hardened and sharpened the jew

  that he survives his persecutors

  and outsteps them and outthinks them

  if these guys were smart

  they would give the jews a chance

  to disintegrate through luxury and ease

  instead of which they toughen

  the hebraic moral fibre

  through the ages and they will wind up

  by making the jews in the end

  what they were said to be

  that is the chosen people

  archy the cockroach

  the league

  if the league of nations

  can survive the mutual animosities

  of the powers which belong to it

  it is safe from the activities

  of the countries which stayed outside of it

  it furnishes a wonderful mechanism

  with which to do what the powers

  want to do if they only knew

  what they wanted to do

  incidentally i wonder why europe of today

  is always referred to by highbrow writers

  as post war europe

  they seem to think that the war

  which started in nineteen fourteen

  is over with whereas there have been

  merely a few brief truces

  that war is merely worrying through

  its first half century

  and will only cease permanently

  when a generation comes along

  which has forgotten all the old feuds

  archy the cockroach

  conferences

  diplomatists and ambassadors

  are rushing hither and yon

  from country to country around the world

  by train steamer and airplane

  by which i judge that there is more trouble

  in store for the human species

  for i have noticed that conferences

  to establish international good will

  always break up with anot
her row

  there is no hope for the world

  unless politicians of all sorts

  are completely abolished

  you cannot get a millennium by

  laying a whole lot of five year plans

  end to end if governments would just let people alone

  things would straighten out of themselves

  in the course of time

  archy the cockroach

  a warning

  i am glad to see business

  picking up again but when i hear

  that the stock market is on the rise

  there is a bit of a chill

  creeps over my flush of optimism

  for i can remember way back

  millions of years back

  to the days when the stock market

  was up in the stratosphere

  in a wild balloon

  and it came down without a parachute

  if it does that all over again

  we will reach a situation

  where the hard times of the last few years

  will look so good by comparison

  that they will resemble

  an ice cream party on the pastors lawn

  archy the cockroach

  now look at it

  the human race never would

  take my advice

  and now just look at it

  planning more wars which mean

  more debts more trouble and still more wars

  well if it wants to commit suicide

  why should a little insect such as i

  worry about it

  a suicide is a person who has

  considered his own case and decided

  that he is worthless and who acts

  as his own judge jury and executioner

  and he probably knows better

  than anyone else whether there is justice

  in the verdict

  i am sorry to see the human race go

  for it was in some respects almost as interesting

  as several species of insects

  but if it wants to die off

  i shall not worry about it

  i shall merely conclude it knows what it wants

  archy the cockroach

  why the earth is round