Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones-- <br />In fact, he's remarkably fat. <br />He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs, <br />For he's the St. James's Street Cat! <br />He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street <br />In his coat of fastidious black: <br />No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers <br />Or such an impreccable back. <br />In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names is <br />The name of this Brummell of Cats; <br />And we're all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to <br />By Bustopher Jones in white spats! <br /> <br />His visits are occasional to the Senior Educational <br />And it is against the rules <br />For any one Cat to belong both to that <br />And the Joint Superior Schools. <br /> <br />For a similar reason, when game is in season <br />He is found, not at Fox's, but Blimpy's; <br />He is frequently seen at the gay Stage and Screen <br />Which is famous for winkles and shrimps. <br />In the season of venison he gives his ben'son <br />To the Pothunter's succulent bones; <br />And just before noon's not a moment too soon <br />To drop in for a drink at the Drones. <br />When he's seen in a hurry there's probably curry <br />At the Siamese--or at the Glutton; <br />If he looks full of gloom then he's lunched at the Tomb <br />On cabbage, rice pudding and mutton. <br /> <br />So, much in this way, passes Bustopher's day- <br />At one club or another he's found. <br />It can be no surprise that under our eyes <br />He has grown unmistakably round. <br />He's a twenty-five pounder, or I am a bounder, <br />And he's putting on weight every day: <br />But he's so well preserved because he's observed <br />All his life a routine, so he'll say. <br />Or, to put it in rhyme: "I shall last out my time" <br />Is the word of this stoutest of Cats. <br />It must and it shall be Spring in Pall Mall <br />While Bustopher Jones wears white spats!<br /><br />Thomas Stearns Eliot<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bustopher-jones-the-cat-about-town/
