Read Online The Best of Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis - Free Book Online Page A

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

why the earth is round
    the men of science are talking
    about the size and shape of the universe again
    i thought i had settled that for them
    years ago it is as big as you think it is
    and it is spherical in shape
    can you prove it isnt
    it is round like a ball or an orange
    providence made it that shape
    so it would roll when he kicked it
    and if you ask me how i know this
    the answer is that that is just what
    i would do myself
    if there are any other practical
    scientific questions you would like
    to have answered just write to
    archy the cockroach

poets
    the universe and archy
    the inspired cockroach
    sat and looked at each other
    satirically
    you write so many things
    about me that are not true
    complained the universe
    there are so many things
    about you which you seem to be
    unconscious of yourself said archy
    i contain a number of things
    which i am trying to forget
    rejoined the universe
    such as what asked archy
    such as cockroaches and poets
    replied the universe
    you are wrong contended archy
    for it is only by working up
    the most important part of yourself
    into the form of poets
    that you get a product capable
    of understanding you at all
    you poets were always able
    to get the better of me
    in argument said the universe
    and i think that is one thing
    that is the matter with you
    if you object to my intellect
    retorted archy i can only reply
    that i got it from you
    as well as everything else
    that should make you more humble

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