Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

we're a notorious couple of cats

As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians

Tight-rope walkers and acrobats

We have an extensive reputation

We make our home in Victoria Grove

This is merely our center of operation

For we are incurably given to rove

 

We are very well known in Cornwall Gardens

In Launceston Place and in Kensington Square

We have really a little more reputation

Than a couple of cats can very well bear

 

If the area window is found ajar

And the basement lookes like a field of war

If a tile or two come loose on the roof

Which presently fails to be waterproof

If the drawers were pulled out from bedroom chests

And you can't find one of your winter vests

If after supper one of the girls

Suddenly misses her Woolworth pearls

 

Then the family will say: "It's that horrible cat!

It was Mungojerrie or Rumpleteazer!"

And most of the time, they leave it at that

 

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

have a very unusual gift of the gab

We are highly efficient cat burgulars as well

And remarkably smart at a smash and grab

We make our home in Victoria Grove

We have no regular occupation

We are plausible fellows who like to engage

A friendly policeman in conversation

 

When the family assembles for Sunday dinner

With their minds made up that they won't get thinner

On Argentine joint, potatoes and greens

Then the cook would appear from behind the scenes

And say in a voice that is broken with sorrow

"I'm afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow

The joint has gone from the oven like that!"

 

Then the family will say, "It's that horrible cat!

It was Mungojerrie or Rumpleteazer!"

And most of the time they leave it at that

 

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

have a wonderful way of working together.

And some of the time you would say it was luck

And some of the time you would say it was weather

We go through the house like a hurricane

And no sober person can take his oath

Was it Mungojerrie or Rumpleteazer?

Or could you have sworn that it mightn't be both?

 

And when you hear a dining room smash

Or up from the pantry there comes a loud crash

Or down from the library there comes a loud ping

From a vase which was commonly said to be Ming

 

Then the family will say, "Now which was which cat?

It was Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer"

And there's nothing at all to be done about that!