"Now louder and warmer the competition growing,
Politeness nearly banished in the grand fracas;
Two hundred, two hundred and thirty-three—a-going!
Gone! Never cat of talents surely met avidly such éclat!
E'en nine or ten fine gentlemen were in the fashion caught as well,
As ladies in their bidding for this purring piece of tortoiseshell.
And the buyer bore him off in triumph, after all the fun was done,
And bells rang, as if Whittington had been Lord Mayor of London;
Mice and rats flung up their hats, to find that cats so scarce were,
And mouse-trap makers raised their prices cent. per cent.!"