The Best of Archy and Mehitabel Read Free Page A

wotthehell wotthehell
    i wake the world from sleep
    as i caper and sing and leap
    when i sing my wild free tune
    wotthehell wotthehell
    under the blear eyed moon
    i am pelted with cast off shoon
    but wotthehell wotthehell
    do you think that i would change
    my present freedom to range
    for a castle or moated grange
    wotthehell wotthehell
    cage me and i d go frantic
    my life is so romantic
    capricious and corybantic
    and i m toujours gai toujours gai
    i know that i am bound
    for a journey down the sound
    in the midst of a refuse mound
    but wotthehell wotthehell
    oh i should worry and fret
    death and i will coquette
    there s a dance in the old dame yet
    toujours gai toujours gai
    i once was an innocent kit
    wotthehell wotthehell
    with a ribbon my neck to fit
    and bells tied onto it
    o wotthehell wotthehell
    but a maltese cat came by
    with a come hither look in his eye
    and a song that soared to the sky
    and wotthehell wotthehell
    and i followed adown the street
    the pad of his rhythmical feet
    o permit me again to repeat
    wotthehell wotthehell
    my youth i shall never forget
    but there s nothing i really regret
    wotthehell wotthehell
    there s a dance in the old dame yet
    toujours gai toujours gai

    i followed adown the street the pad of his rhythmical feet
    the things that i had not ought to
    i do because i ve gotto
    wotthehell wotthehell
    and i end with my favorite motto
    toujours gai toujours gai
    boss sometimes i think
    that our friend mehitabel
    is a trifle too gay

mehitabel s extensive past
    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 antony
    anthony who she asked me are
    you thinking of that
    song about rowley and gammon and
    spinach heigho for anthony rowley
    no i said mark antony the
    great roman the friend of
    caesar surely cleopatra you
    remember j caesar
    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
    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