Dick now tried to rise, but was obliged to lie down again, being too weak to stand; for he had not eaten anything for three days, and was no longer able to run about and beg a halfpenny of people in the streets: so the kind merchant ordered that he should be taken into his house, and have a good dinner immediately, and that he should be kept to do what dirty work he was able for the cook.
Little Dick would have lived very happily in this worthy family, had it not been for the crabbed cook, who was finding fault and scolding at him from morning till night; and was withal so fond of roasting and basting, that, when the spit was out of her hands, she would be at basting poor Dick's head and shoulders with a broom, or anything else that happened to fall in her way; till at last her ill usage of him was told to Miss Alice, Mr. Fitzwarren's daughter, who asked the ill-tempered creature if she was not ashamed to use a little friendless boy so cruelly; and added, she would certainly be turned away if she did not treat him with more kindness.
But though the cook was so ill-tempered, Mr. Fitzwarren's footman was quite the contrary; he had lived in the family many years, was rather elderly, and had once a little boy of his own, who died when about the age of Whittington; so he could not but feel compassion for the poor boy.
As the footman was very fond of reading, he used generally in the evening to entertain his fellow-servants, when they had done their work, with some amusing book. The pleasure our little hero took in hearing him made him very much desire to learn to read too; so the next time the good-natured footman gave him a halfpenny, he bought a horn-book with it; and, with a little of his help, Dick soon learned his letters, and afterwards to read.
About this time Miss Alice was going out one morning for a walk; and the footman happening to be out of the way, little Dick, who had received from Mr. Fitzwarren a neat suit of clothes, to go to church on Sundays, was ordered to put them on, and walk behind her. As they walked along, Miss Alice, seeing a poor woman with a child in her arms, and another at her back, pulled out her purse, and gave her some money; and as she was putting it again into her pocket, she dropped it on the ground, and walked on. Luckily Dick, who was behind, saw what she had done, picked it up, and immediately presented it to her.
Besides the ill-humour of the cook, which now, however, was somewhat mended, Whittington had another hardship to get over. This was, that his bed, which was of flock, was placed in a garret, where there were so many holes in the floor and walls, that he never went to bed without being awakened in his sleep by great numbers of rats and mice, which generally ran over his face, and made such a noise, that he sometimes thought the walls were tumbling down about him.
One day a gentleman who paid a visit to Mr. Fitzwarren, happened to have dirtied his shoes, and begged they might be cleaned. Dick took great pains to make them shine, and the gentleman gave him a penny. This he resolved to lay out in buying a cat, if possible; and the next day, seeing a little girl with a cat under her arm, he went up to her, and asked if she would let him have it for a penny; to which the girl replied, she would with all her heart, for her mother had more cats than she could maintain; adding, that the one she had was an excellent mouser.
This cat Whittington hid in the garret, always taking care to carry her a part of his dinner: and in a short time he had no further disturbance from the rats and mice, but slept as sound as a top.
Soon after this, the merchant, who had a ship ready to sail, richly laden, and thinking it but just that all his servants should have some chance for good luck as well as himself, called them into the parlour, and asked them what commodity they chose to send.
All mentioned something they were willing to venture but poor Whittington, who, having no money nor goods, could send nothing at all, for which reason he did not come in with the rest; but Miss Alice, guessing what was the matter, ordered him to be called, and offered to lay down some money for him from her own purse; but this, the merchant observed, would not do, for it must be something of his own.