azure-pedalled coteries of Washington Square has perhaps received more
publicity than any other of Marquis's writings, but of all Don's
drolleries I reserve my chief affection for Archy. The cockroach,
endowed by some freak of transmigration with the shining soul of a vers
libre poet, is a thoroughly Marquisian whimsy. I make no apology for
quoting this prince of blattidae at some length. Many a commuter,
opening his evening paper on the train, looks first of all to see if
Archy is in the Dial. I love Archy because there seems to me something
thoroughly racial and native and American about him. Can you imagine
him, for instance, in _Punch_? His author has never told us which one of
the vers libre poets it is whose soul has emigrated into Archy, but I
feel sure it is not Ezra Pound or any of the expatriated eccentrics who
lisp in odd numbers in the King's Road, Chelsea. Could it be Amy Lowell?
Perhaps it should be explained that Archy's carelessness as to
punctuation and capitals is not mere ostentation, but arises from the
fact that he is not strong enough to work the shift key of his
typewriter. Ingenious readers of the Sun Dial have suggested many
devices to make this possible, but none that seem feasible to the roach
himself.

The Argument: Archy, the vers libre cockroach, overhears a person with
whiskers and dressed in the uniform of a butler in the British Navy, ask
a German waiter if the pork pie is built. Ja, Ja, replies the waiter.
Archy's suspicions are awakened, and he climbs into the pork pie through
an air hole, and prepares his soul for parlous times. The naval butler
takes the pie on board a launch, and Archy, watching through one of the
portholes of the pastry, sees that they are picked up by a British
cruiser "an inch or two outside the three-mile line." (This was in
neutral days, remember.) Archy continues the narrative in lower case
agate: