Nancy and Star agree on almost everything. Has anyone even seen them in the same room together. See? I thought not.
But Star likes Archy, the Typing Cockroach, and Nancy thinks roaches, even the poets, could use a good mashing. I am on the fence, personally. I am a little jealous of the Arch-Man—he invented animal blogging, basically. There is never anything new under this old sun, is there?
Archy’s peep was a newspaper reporter named Don Marquis. A competitor of his had a rat who could type, but never completed a story (so typical). This—Marquis wrote—gave him the courage to reveal the presence of Archy, a chipper little scarab (as a talking mummy—this is good stuff, I tell you—once referred to the little six-legger).
“We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning and discovered a giant cockroach jumping about on the keys,” Marquis explained in the first of many columns starring Archy.
“expression is the need of my soul, archy had typed.
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it.”
For you consarned cat lovers, Archie also had a feline friend, a blowsy type named Mehitabel. He was also against Prohibition, long story.
You can read more of his ravings at www.donmarquis.com.
He can’t work the caps key, though, the little vermin, and I can. So there.
