Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer

Macavity

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

We're a notorious couple of cats

As knockabout clowns

Quick change comedians

Tightrope 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 Cornwell Gardens

In Launceston Place

And in Kensington Square

We have really a little more reputation

Than a couple of cats

Can very well bare

If the area window is bound ajar

And the basement looks like a field of war

If a tile or two comes loose on the roof

Which presently fails to be waterproof

If the drawers are pulled out from the bedroom chest

And you can't find one of your winter vests

If after supper

One of the girls suddenly misses her Woolworth pearls

The family will say

It's that horrible cat

Was it 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 burglars, 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

And the cook will appear from behind the scenes

And say in a voice that is broken with sorrow

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

"For the joint has gone from the oven like that"

The family will say

"It's that horrible cat"

Was it 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'd go through the house like a hurricane

And no sober person could take this oath

Was it Mungojerrie

Or Rumpleteazer?

Or could you have sworn

That it might have been both?

And when you hear a dinning 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

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