Honorable Loorde P. Sealle hys synguler gode
Lorde.

To those good-mannered and agreeable children Susie and Clara Clemens
this book is affectionately inscribed by their father.

I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his
father, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like
manner had it of HIS father--and so on, back and still back, three
hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so
preserving it. It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition.
It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it COULD have
happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old
days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and
credited it.

Contents.

I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.
II. Tom's early life.
III. Tom's meeting with the Prince.
IV. The Prince's troubles begin.
V. Tom as a patrician.
VI. Tom receives instructions.
VII. Tom's first royal dinner.
VIII. The question of the Seal.
IX. The river pageant.
X. The Prince in the toils.
XI. At Guildhall.
XII. The Prince and his deliverer.
XIII. The disappearance of the Prince.
XIV. 'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'
XV. Tom as King.
XVI. The state dinner.
XVII. Foo-foo the First.
XVIII. The Prince with the tramps.
XIX. The Prince with the peasants.
XX. The Prince and the hermit.
XXI. Hendon to the rescue.
XXII. A victim of treachery.
XXIII. The Prince a prisoner.
XXIV. The escape.
XXV. Hendon Hall.
XXVI. Disowned.
XXVII. In prison.
XXVIII. The sacrifice.
XXIX. To London.
XXX. Tom's progress.
XXXI. The Recognition procession.
XXXII. Coronation Day.
XXXIII. Edward as King.
Conclusion. Justice and Retribution.
Notes.

'The quality of mercy . . . is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The thron-ed monarch better than his crown'.
Merchant of Venice.

Chapter I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.

In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second
quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the
name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English
child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him.
All England wanted h