Mungojerrie
And Rumpelteazer
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 centre 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 bedroom 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 chests
And you can't find one of your winter vests
Or after supper one of the girls
Suddenly misses her Woolworth pearls
The family will say
"It's that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie
Or Rumpelteazer"
And most of the time, they leave it at that
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer
Have a very unusual gift of the gab
We're 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
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
For the joint has gone from the oven like that!"
Then the family will say
"It's that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie
Or Rumpelteazer"
And most of the time, we leave it at that
Mungojerrie
And Rumpelteazer
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 his oath
"Was it Mungojerrie
Or Rumpelteazer?
Or could you have sworn that it might have been 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 the vase which that was commonly said to be Ming
And the family will say
"Now which was which cat?"
"It was Mungojerrie
And Rumpelteazer
And there's nothing at all to be done about that"
