converted kittens, in a comic poem

From the source of the Jerome K. Jerome dog essay I posted a couple days back, here's a poem that reminds me of a Lake Woebegon joke I heard once.  Have your kittens seen the light?

* * *

LITTLE TURNCOATS.
Georgia A. Peck.

As passed the rector of All Saints' one day,
Obsequiously an old man crossed his way,
And with "Good-mornin', sir!" his head laid bare;
Then, steadying his basket with all care,
He turned its cover back to show within
Three sleeping kittens, saying, with a grin,
"I have some fine Episcopal kittens here
That you might like to buy,—they won't come dear."

"Look here, old man!" called out a passer-by,
"I see what you're about, with half an eye!
You tried to sell that lot to me last night
As good, clean, Baptist kittens." -- 

"You are right,
My friend, and they were Baptist then, all three,
But 'twas before their eyes were opened! See?"

-- Cats and Kittens (Readings and Recitations No. 35), Edgar S. Werner, ed. (New York : Edgar S. Werner & Company, c1906), p. 205.