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 II. 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