“We shall never let you go again, for all the riches of the world,” said the mother and father. But Tom was rather pleased with his adventures.
One day, when walking beside the river, he slipped and fell in. Before he had a chance to swim out a fish came along and swallowed him. Tom had escaped so often from such dangers that he was not much afraid. After a time the fish saw a dainty worm, and, little thinking that it was on a hook, took it in its mouth. Before it realized what had happened it was pulled out of the water, with Little Thumb still inside.
Now, as luck would have it, this fish was to be for the King’s dinner. When the cook opened the fish to clean it and make it ready for broiling, out stepped Little Thumb, much to the astonishment and delight of everyone. The King said he had never seen so tiny and merry a fellow. He knighted him, and had Sir Thomas Thumb and his father and mother live in the palace the rest of their lives.
WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT
In the reign of the famous King Edward III there was a little boy called Dick Whittington, whose father and mother died when he was very young, so that he remembered nothing at all about them, and was left a ragged little fellow, running about a country village. As poor Dick was not old enough to work, he was very badly off; he got but little for his dinner, and sometimes nothing at all for his breakfast; for the people who lived in the village were very poor indeed, and could not spare him much more than the parings of potatoes, and now and then a hard crust of bread.
For all this Dick Whittington was a very sharp boy, and was always listening to what everybody talked about. On Sunday he was sure to get near the farmers, as they sat talking on the tombstones in the churchyard, before the parson was come; and once a week you might see little Dick leaning against the sign-post of the village inn, where people stopped as they came from the next market town; and when the barber’s shop door was open, Dick listened to all the news that his customers told one another.
In this manner Dick heard a great many very strange things about the great city called London; for the foolish country people at that time thought that folks in London were all fine gentlemen and ladies; and that there was singing and music there all day long; and that the streets were all paved with gold.