The poem tells the story of Dunderback, who invented a sausage meat machine that grinds up rats and cats to make sausages. One day, a boy orders sausages from the machine and watches the little sausages dance around the room. There is then an accident with the machine, so Dunderback crawls inside to fix it. However, his wife turns the crank in her sleep, grinding up Dunderback in his own machine.