at the front in France dear boss i really must speak to you about archy oh i know i am only an insect too but you are paying too much attention to one cockroach what i mean is that i have to hear too much of this archy of course the principle trouble is neysa you probably know that neysa mcmein1 has brought winsor mckays dinosaur gertie2 over here to bite the german infantry gertie is doing her bit which is large as you know that dinosaurs stand something like twenty feet
high at the shoulder but i want to speak to you about neysa more than gertie it is no longer being kept a secret from the kaiser that i am neysas manager but still you know boss how it is with these temperamental artists and how the biter gets bit really neysa runs me hand and foot and boss if i hadnt always read those communications from archy in order to keep in touch with current thought among my fellow insects, i wouldn’t mind but neysa trails about france with her uniform pockets stuffed with very ancient communications from archy which she insists upon reading aloud particularly in times of stress such as when a boche3 aeroplane is overhead and we have not yet found out which house in our block he is aiming his bomb at neysa is here as a y m c a entertainer and do you think she is rightly representing american womanhood to read old archys to me under those conditions i dont neysas sketches that she does for the pretty soldiers are not half bad though they get smeared all over due to lack of fixitive, but boss do you think that a young person who draws pretty girls ought to read aloud all the time to person who cant get away from her i dont i hope you can do something about this i have nothing personal against archy
yours for better behaved artists
jane gad fly
OCTOBER 28
The Influenza1
well boss i suppose you
wonder what has become of
me lately i have been
quarantined or rather
i quarantined myself
voluntarily lest
i help spread the
influenza on the
back of a cockroach
no larger than
myself millions of
influenza germs may lodge i
have a sense of responsibility
to the public and i
have been lying for two weeks
in a barrel of moth
balls in a drug store
without food or water it
strikes me as a good time to
come across with that
raise of salary you
are always promising me
NOVEMBER 9
A Tall Story
well boss i had a
terrible adventure the
other day it was the
day that the news
of the armistice came which
afterward proved not to be
true1 if you can
remember that far
back
i was on one of the upper
floors of the
woolworth building2 and as
you may have noticed it has many
upper floors and some of the
uppermost floors are
very far up
this floor was about six
hundred feet above
broadway
i was hunting bits of
sandwich in a waste
paper basket when the
paper shower began
everybody began to
hunt paper to tear up and
throw out the window and to
make a frightful story as
mild as possible i
was on one of the pieces of
paper that was torn and
thrown out of the
window down down down
i went whirling around and around
for a hundred feet and
screaming at the
top of my voice but in
all that noise what were the
cries of one small cockroach
i doubt if i was heard
twenty feet away
down and down i fell and just as i
thought i might be dashed to pieces on
some bald head two hundred yards below
a gust of wind caught me up and up up up
i went again to make
a tall story as short as
possible this kept up for
nearly two hours i
felt like a person who
has climbed aboard an
airplane thinking it is
an automobile and who
does not discover his
mistake until he
is above some brutal looking
mountain range
i finally came into contact with a
piece of ticker tape3
and crawled aboard it in
midair it seemed bigger somehow
but it evidently
thought it was a snake it
went wreathing and twining
itself through the air
and when it finally did come
down it twined itself around the
neck of an inebriated
gentleman who saw me and
whose first words were
i do not see a cockroach i
only think i see a cockroach
o heaven if i only
get over this attack i
will never drink another
drop yours as ever
NOVEMBER 14
Chief Janitor
why not let the
kaiser be chief janitor of
the peace palace at
the hague then
when anything went
wrong anywhere he
could be called in and
cussed yours for
punishments
NOVEMBER 23
I Saw Archy
well boss it is
surprising how many
gossips there are left in
this world and how
easy it is to ruin a
person’s reputation
a few days ago an
alleged friend of yours
remarked to another
alleged friend i saw
archy on a bun in
a cafe down town the other
day and the second alleged
friend told another person
that archy had been seen
publicly intoxicated and
the other person went
around saying poor
archy he drinks like a
water bug until my
reputation is ruined you
would think i was
the habitual companion of
the well known dipsas snake1
and the truth of
the whole thing is very
simple your alleged friend did
see me on a bun
in a cafe it was a
common ordinary bun such as
you spread butter on
and eat and i
was eating at it
just as i would sit on any other
piece of bread and eat but
now all my friends are
saying to me
did i see you on a
bun or did i not
answer yes or no and if i
answer no they say
prevaricator i saw you on a
bun and if i answer yes they
say i thought so and
will not let me explain and
if i do not answer
at all they say
aha too full for
utterance sometimes i
hate the world
DECEMBER 3
Peace Conference
[Marquis’s column for December 3 begins with dispatches from both Hermione and Fothergil Finch, supposedly sent the day before by wireless from aboard the U. S. S. Orizaba, which is bearing them across the Atlantic to the peace conference then being held in Paris. Then Archy adds his note.]