to his house, and
have a good dinner immediately, and that he should be kept to do what
dirty work he was able for the cook.

Little Dick would have lived very happily in this worthy family, had it
not been for the crabbed cook, who was finding fault and scolding at him
from morning till night; and was withal so fond of roasting and basting,
that, when the spit was out of her hands, she would be at basting poor
Dick's head and shoulders with a broom, or anything else that happened
to fall in her way; till at last her ill usage of him was told to Miss
Alice, Mr. Fitzwarren's daughter, who asked the ill-tempered creature if
she was not ashamed to use a little friendless boy so cruelly; and
added, she would certainly be turned away if she did not treat him with
more kindness.

But though the cook was so ill-tempered, Mr. Fitzwarren's footman was
quite the contrary; he had lived in the family many years, was rather
elderly, and had once a little boy of his own, who died when about the
age of Whittington; so he could not but feel compassion for the poor
boy.

As the footman was very fond of reading, he used generally in the
evening to entertain his fellow-servants, when they had done their work,
with some amusing book. The pleasure our little hero took in hearing
him made him very much desire to learn to read too; so the next time the
good-natured footman gave him a halfpenny, he bought a horn-book with
it; and, with a little of his help, Dick soon learned his letters, and
afterwards to read.

About this time Miss Alice was going out one morning for a walk; and the
footman happening to be out of the way, little Dick, who had received
from Mr. Fitzwarren a neat suit of clothes, to go to church on Sundays,
was ordered to put them on, and walk behind her. As they walked along,
Miss Alice, seeing a poor woman with a child in her arms, and another at
her back, pulled out her purse, and gave her some money; and as she was
putting it again into her pocket, she dropped it on the ground, and
walked on. Luckily Dick, who was behind, saw what she had done, picked
it up, and immediately presented it to her.

Besides the ill-humour of the cook, which now, however, was somewhat
mended, Whittington had another hardship to get over. This was, that his
bed, which was of flock, was placed in a garret, where there were so
many holes in the floor and walls, that he never went to bed without
being awakened in his sleep by great numbers of