Gus: The Theatre Cat

Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door

His name as I ought to have told you before

Is really Asparagus, but that's such a fuss

To pronounce that we usually call him

Just Gus

His coat's very shabby

He's thin as a rake

And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake

Yet he was in his youth quite the smartest of cats

But no longer a terror to mice or to rats

For he isn't the cat that he was in his prime

Though his name was quite famous, he says, in his time

And whenever he joins his friends at their club

(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)

He loves to regale them if someone else pays

With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days

For he once was a star of the highest degree

He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree

And he likes to relate his success on the halls

Where the gallery once gave him seven catcalls

But his grandest creation as he loves to tell

Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell

"I have played, in my time, every possible part

And I used to know seventy speeches by heart

I'd extemporize backchat

I knew how to gag

And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag

I knew how to act with my back and my tail

With an hour of rehearsal

I never could fail

I'd a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts

Whether I took the lead or in character parts

I have sat by the bedside of poor little Nell

When the curfew was rung then I swung on the bell

In the pantomime season I never fell flat

And I once understudied Dick Whittington's cat

But my grandest creation

As history will tell

Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell"

Then if someone will give him a toothful of gin

He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne

At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat

When some actor suggested the need for a cat

"And I say now these kittens

They do not get trained

As we did in the days when Victoria reigned

They never get drilled in a regular troupe

And they think they are smart

Just to jump through a hoop"

And he says as he scratches himself with his claws

"Well, the theatre is certainly not what it was

These modern productions are all very well

But there's nothing to equal from what I hear tell

That moment of mystery when I made history

As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell"

"I once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire

To rescue a child when a house was on fire

And I think that I still can much better than most

Produce blood-curdling noises to bring on the ghost

And I once played Growltiger

Could do it again

Could do it again

Could do it again . . ."