THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
by Mark Twain
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.
CHAPTER 1. 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 him too. England had so
longed for him, and hoped for him, and
prayed God for him, that, now that he was
really come, the people went nearly mad
for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and
kissed each other and cried.
Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich
and poor, feasted and danced and sang, and
got very mellow; and they kept this up for days
and nights together. By day, London was a sight
to see, with gay banners waving from every
balcony and housetop, and splendid pageants
marching along. By night, it was again a sight to
see, with its great bonfires at every corner, and
its troops of revellers making merry around
them.
There was no talk in all England but of the
new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales,
who lay lapped in silks and satins,
unconscious of all this fuss, and not
knowing that great lords and ladies were
tending him and watching over him—and
not caring, either. But there was no talk
about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped
in his poor rags, except among the family
of paupers whom he had just come to
trouble with his presence.
CHAPTER 2. Tom's early life.
Let us skip a number of years.
London was fifteen hundred years old, and
was a great town—for that day. It had a
hundred thousand inhabitants—some
think double as many. The streets were
very narrow, and crooked, and dirty,
especially in the part where Tom Canty
lived, which was not far from London
Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the
second story projecting over the first, and
the third sticking its elbows out beyond the
second. The higher the houses grew, the
broader they grew. They were skeletons of
strong criss-cross beams, with solid
material between, coated with plaster.
The beams were painted red or blue or black,
according to the owner's taste, and this gave the
houses a very picturesque look. The windows
were small, glazed with little diamond-shaped
panes, and they opened outward, on hinges,
like doors.
The house which Tom's father lived in was up a
foul little pocket called Offal Court, out of
Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed, and
rickety, but it was packed full of wretchedly poor
families. Canty's tribe occupied a room on the
third floor. The mother and father had a sort of
bedstead in the corner; but Tom, his
grandmother, and his two sisters, Bet and Nan,
were not restricted—they had all the floor to
themselves, and might sleep where they chose.
There were the remains of a blanket or two, and
some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but
these could not rightly be called beds, for they
were not organised; they were kicked into a
general pile, mornings, and selections made
from the mass at night, for service.
Bet and Nan were fifteen years old—twins.
They were good-hearted girls, unclean,
clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant.
Their mother was like them. But the father
and the grandmother were a couple of
fiends. They got drunk whenever they
could; then they fought each other or
anybody else who came in the way; they
cursed and swore always, drunk or sober;
John Canty was a thief, and his mother a
beggar. They made beggars of the
children, but failed to make thieves of
them.
Among, but not of, the dreadful rabble that
inhabited the house, was a good old priest
whom the King had turned out of house and
home with a pension of a few farthings, and he
used to get the children aside and teach them
right ways secretly. Father Andrew also taught
Tom a little Latin, and how to read and write;
and would have done the same with the girls,
but they were afraid of the jeers of their friends,
who could not have endured such a queer
accomplishment in them.
All Offal Court was just such another hive
as Canty's house. Drunkenness, riot and
brawling were the order, there, every night
and nearly all night long. Broken heads
were as common as hunger in that place.
Yet little Tom was not unhappy. He had a
hard time of it, but did not know it. It was
the sort of time that all the Offal Court boys
had, therefore he supposed it was the
correct and comfortable thing.
When he came home empty-handed at night, he
knew his father would curse him and thrash him
first, and that when he was done the awful
grandmother would do it all over again and
improve on it; and that away in the night his
starving mother would slip to him stealthily with
any miserable scrap or crust she had been able
to save for him by going hungry herself,
notwithstanding she was often caught in that
sort of treason and soundly beaten for it by her
husband.
No, Tom's life went along well enough,
especially in summer. He only begged just
enough to save himself, for the laws
against mendicancy were stringent, and
the penalties heavy; so he put in a good
deal of his time listening to good Father
Andrew's charming old tales and legends
about giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii,
and enchanted castles, and gorgeous
kings and princes.
His head grew to be full of these wonderful
things, and many a night as he lay in the
dark on his scant and offensive straw,
tired, hungry, and smarting from a
thrashing, he unleashed his imagination
and soon forgot his aches and pains in
delicious picturings to himself of the
charmed life of a petted prince in a regal
palace. One desire came in time to haunt
him day and night: it was to see a real
prince, with his own eyes. He spoke of it
once to some of his Offal Court comrades;
but they jeered him and scoffed him so
unmercifully that he was glad to keep his
dream to himself after that.
He often read the priest's old books and
got him to explain and enlarge upon them.
His dreamings and readings worked
certain changes in him, by- and-by. His
dream-people were so fine that he grew to
lament his shabby clothing and his dirt,
and to wish to be clean and better clad. He
went on playing in the mud just the same,
and enjoying it, too; but, instead of
splashing around in the Thames solely for
the fun of it, he began to find an added
value in it because of the washings and
cleansings it afforded.
Tom could always find something going on
around the Maypole in Cheapside, and at
the fairs; and now and then he and the
rest of London had a chance to see a
military parade when some famous
unfortunate was carried prisoner to the
Tower, by land or boat. One summer's day
he saw poor Anne Askew and three men
burned at the stake in Smithfield, and
heard an ex-Bishop preach a sermon to
them which did not interest him. Yes,
Tom's life was varied and pleasant
enough, on the whole.
By-and-by Tom's reading and dreaming
about princely life wrought such a strong
effect upon him that he began to act the
prince, unconsciously. His speech and
manners became curiously ceremonious
and courtly, to the vast admiration and
amusement of his intimates. But Tom's
influence among these young people
began to grow now, day by day; and in
time he came to be looked up to, by them,
with a sort of wondering awe, as a
superior being. He seemed to know so
much! and he could do and say such
marvellous things! and withal, he was so
deep and wise!
Tom's remarks, and Tom's performances,
were reported by the boys to their elders;
and these, also, presently began to
discuss Tom Canty, and to regard him as
a most gifted and extraordinary creature.
Full- grown people brought their
perplexities to Tom for solution, and were
often astonished at the wit and wisdom of
his decisions. In fact he was become a
hero to all who knew him except his own
family—these, only, saw nothing in him.
Privately, after a while, Tom
organised a royal court! He was the
prince; his special comrades were
guards, chamberlains, equerries,
lords and ladies in waiting, and the
royal family. Daily the mock prince
was received with elaborate
ceremonials borrowed by Tom from
his romantic readings; daily the great
affairs of the mimic kingdom were
discussed in the royal council, and
daily his mimic highness issued
decrees to his imaginary armies,
navies, and viceroyalties.
After which, he would go forth in his rags
and beg a few farthings, eat his poor crust,
take his customary cuffs and abuse, and
then stretch himself upon his handful of
foul straw, and resume his empty
grandeurs in his dreamiss
And still his desire to look just once
upon a real prince, in the flesh, grew
upon him, day by day, and week by
week, until at last it absorbed all
other desires, and became the one
passion of his life.
One January day, on his usual begging tour,
he tramped despondently up and down the
region round about Mincing Lane and Little
East Cheap, hour after hour, bare-footed and
cold, looking in at cook-shop windows and
longing for the dreadful pork-pies and other
deadly inventions displayed there—for to him
these were dainties fit for the angels; that is,
judging by the smell, they were—for it had
never been his good luck to own and eat one.
There was a cold drizzle of rain; the
atmosphere was murky; it was a melancholy
day.
At night Tom reached home so wet and tired
and hungry that it was not possible for his
father and grandmother to observe his forlorn
condition and not be moved—after their
fashion; wherefore they gave him a brisk
cuffing at once and sent him to bed. For a
long time his pain and hunger, and the
swearing and fighting going on in the
building, kept him awake; but at last his
thoughts drifted away to far, romantic lands,
and he fell asleep in the company of jewelled
and gilded princelings who live in vast
palaces, and had servants salaaming before
them or flying to execute their orders. And
then, as usual, he dreamed that he was a
princeling himself.
All night long the glories of his royal estate
shone upon him; he moved among great lords
and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathing
perfumes, drinking in delicious music, and
answering the reverent obeisances of the
glittering throng as it parted to make way for
him, with here a smile, and there a nod of his
princely head.
And when he awoke in the morning and looked
upon the wretchedness about him, his dream
had had its usual effect—it had intensified the
sordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold.
Then came bitterness, and heart-break, and
tears.