WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT

epg] MERCHANT once upon a time,
Who had great store of gold,
Among his household placed a boy
Sore pinched by want and cold;
No father and no mother watched
With love o’er this poor boy,
Whose dearest treasure was a cat,
His pet, and only joy,
That came to him beseechingly,
When death was at the door,
And kindly to relieve her wants
He shared his little store.

 

This boy was called Richard Whittington. He
had lost his father and mother, and, having no
friends, had come up to London to seek his fortune.
London streets, he had been told, were paved with
gold. Alas! he found them only deep in mud, and
hard—hard with stones.

After many privations and disappointments, and
when nearly starved, he was taken into the house
of a merchant named Fitzwarren.

In this house he would have lived very happily, if
it had not been for the cook, who was very ill-
natured, and who would beat him with the broom,

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