And this is what they told us about him.

It seems that once, long, long ago, that little town was dreadfully
troubled with rats. The houses were full of them, the shops were full of
them, the churches were full of them, they were _everywhere_. The people
were all but eaten out of house and home. Those rats,

They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats!

At last it got so bad that the people simply couldn't stand it any longer.
So they all came together and went to the town hall, and they said to the
Mayor (you know what a mayor is?), "See here, what do we pay you your
salary for? What are you good for, if you can't do a little thing like
getting rid of these rats? You must go to work and clear the town of them;
find the remedy that's lacking, or--we'll send you packing!"

Well, the poor Mayor was in a terrible way. What to do he didn't know. He
sat with his head in his hands, and thought and thought and thought.

Suddenly there came a little _rat-tat_ at the door. Oh! how the Mayor
jumped! His poor old heart went pit-a-pat at anything like the sound of a