The pickles, the cookies, the pies were gone!
And naught remained on the shelf
Save the bone of a ham, which lay cold and calm,
The ghost of its former self.
Sir Green-eyes Grimalkin stood sore dismayed,
And he looked for the mice and rats.
But they, every one, had been long since gone
Far, far from the reach of cats.
For while he was donning his satin pelisse,
And his ribbons and laces gay,
They had finished their feast, without hurry the least,
And had tranquilly trotted away.
The mistress of Green-eyes Grimalkin de Sly,
A woman full stern was she.
She came to the door, and she rated him sore
When the state of the case she did see.
She grasped him, spite of his knightly blood,
By the tip of his knightly tail;
His adornments she stripped, and his body she dipped
Three times in the water-pail.
She plunged him thrice 'neath the icy flood,
Then turned him out-doors to dry;
And terror and cold on his feelings so told,
That he really was like to die.
And now in this world 'twould be hard to find,
Although you looked low and high,
A cat who cares less for the beauties of dress
Than Sir Green-eyes Grimalkin de Sly.
