Author: Don Marquis
Category: Humorous
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Falling Upwards
one of the most
pathetic things i
have seen recently
was an intoxicated person
trying to fall
down a moving stairway
it was the escalator at
the thirty fourth street
side of the
pennsylvania station
he could not fall down as
fast as it
carried him up again but
he was game he kept on
trying he was
stubborn about it
evidently it was a part of
his tradition habit and
training always to fall down
stairs when intoxicated and
he did not intend to
be defeated this time i
watched him for an hour
and moved sadly away thinking
how much sorrow
drink is responsible for the
buns by great men
reached and kept
are not attained
by sudden flight but they
while their companions slept
were falling upwards
through the night1
AUGUST 14
Headgear
boss i wish you
would get some sort of
headgear for me so
that my cranium would not
get so sore
through operating the
typewriter or else oil the
machine so the keys
will work easier i have to
hit every letter so hard that i
am afraid i will get
concussion of the brain and
my literary style will suffer
from it can you not
fix up some device whereby i
will be able to use
punctuation i have been crit
icised so frequently for not
using any punctuation that i am
becoming sensitive
about it yours till
we get the potsdam gas range
AUGUST 24
Smile When You Ride on the Subway
boss i hold no brief
for the new subway system1
or the way it is operated or
anything connected with it but
fairness compells me to state
that i find it no more
difficult to get about town on
the new system than on the
old of course that may be because
it was always difficult for me
there has been so much knocking
however that i
think some one should call
attention to at least one good
feature and that is
the air in the new seventh avenue
line it is fit to breathe and
there is plenty of it
perhaps more people would find it
easier to get about on the subways if
they played my system
too many people get on a subway in
order to go somewhere of course
if you do that you are bound to
disappointment
subway riding is not a game of
skill at all it is a game of
chance you should not get on a
subway for the purpose of going
somewhere
you should just get on a subway train
then if you go somewhere that is so
much gain people should
cultivate a delight in the
unexpected there is no thrill of
discovery in boarding a train that
takes you somewhere you have counted
on going to
anyhow how can you tell
whether you want to go to a place or
not until you have tried going there
get onto any train and get off again
after a while and
then look over the place you have
come to with a sympathetic mind
and an open heart and
you will probably find something
excellent and
admirable in it the
whole thing is in the
point of view and the
philosophic attitude which you
bring to subway riding some
people are discontented no
matter where they are and
other people find something
good in all places one who is
in harmony with the
cosmic all as our
friend hermione might say
will find one place just as good
as another for all
places are equidistant from the
spiritual centre of
the universe if you
apprehend my meaning
think of that the next time you
go into the station at
times square and be happy
smile when you ride
on the subway but
do not smile at any of the
feminine guards or ticket sellers
they might not
understand it some of them
seem to understand very little
if you want to go
anywhere in particular
hire a taxi
SEPTEMBER 16
A Genuine Quip
well boss i
had a good joke all fixed
up for your column and
then a book worm
came along and
spoiled it for me i
often have bad
luck with my jokes
especially with my puns
but i will explain this
one to you and
you can see for your self
that it would have been
quite a joke if the
latin language had been a
little different my
idea was to write a quip for
you saying aut kaiser aut
mihiel you see what i
mean dont you a pun on
the latin quotation aut
caesar aut nihil and
then along comes a book
worm and says archy that
quotation is not
aut caesar aut nihil it
is aut caesar aut nullus
well boss better
luck next time some day
i hope to make a
genuine quip for you1
SEPTEMBER 26
Tobacco Fund
why not buy
thrift stamps1 up to
the place where
you can get a
liberty bond with them
and then turn
over the liberty bond to
the sun tobacco fund2
yours till hell
recedes from earth
OCTOBER 1
The Advice of Your Little Friend
few men who
are chronically
short are
too short to get
their chins
above the rail
of a bar
cut out the
booze and buy
thrift stamps and
put the stamps
into a liberty
bond is the
advice of your
little friend
OCTOBER 26
Jane Gad Fly
A COMMUNIQUE
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.]
wireless to the sun dial
u s s orizaba1 dec 2 all at sea
well boss here am i
your own archy
i stowed away in
fothergill finchs steamer
trunk and shall
act as his secretary i
have already found several
relatives and ship
mates of former years on
board the vessel the
grub is probably better
ship than in others but
so far i have only
struck the others
DECEMBER 5
More and More at Sea
u s s orizaba dec 5 more and
more at sea
well boss i am sorry to
tattle on anybody but the
truth is that fothergill is
filing stuff he wrote
before he started he is
too ill to write anything he
is the color of the
contents of a can
of pea soup
but there is not as
much in him this
morning he asked the
steward how long people
usually live after a ship sinks
and the steward said
only a few minutes it
seems a long time said
fothergil sadly and the
steward said this is not
rough weather wait until we
catch some really rough
weather
why continued the steward i have
crossed the ocean in
december almost upside down
that is nothing said
fothergil i am crossing
the ocean almost
inside out
DECEMBER 6
Poet Overboard
u s s george washington1 dec 5
at sea kindness of assistant wireless
operator to the sun dial
well boss you will wonder
how it is that i started away
for france on the orizaba and
am now sending you
this despatch from the
george washington that is you
will wonder if this despatch ever
gets through which it may not
if mr creel2
catches the wireless man sending
it well boss to make
a wet story as dry as possible it
happened in this wise
yesterday fothergil finch
was leaning in a
melancholy attitude over the rail
spouting poetry like a
bolsheviki triton3
into the trough of the sea and
i was by his right elbow
listening for there is
little sport for a
cockroach aboard ship and he
must dissipate his ennui as best he
can when suddenly fothergil
began to writhe and gyrate
with a paroxysm of vers libre
that came from his very
solar plexus and inadvertently struck