es stopped on its way
through the village, Dick made friends with the waggoner and begged to
be taken with him to London. The man felt sorry for poor little Dick
when he heard that he had no father or mother to take care of him, and
saw how ragged and how badly in need of help he was. So he agreed to
take him, and off they set.

How far it was and how many days they took over the journey I do not
know, but in due time Dick found himself in the wonderful city which he
had heard so much of and pictured to himself so grandly. But oh! how
disappointed he was when he got there. How dirty it was! And the people,
how unlike the gay company, with music and singing, that he had dreamt
of! He wandered up and down the streets, one after another, until he was
tired out, but not one did he find that was paved with gold. Dirt in
plenty he could see, but none of the gold that he thought to have put in
his pockets as fast as he chose to pick it up.

[Illustration: Dick finds that the streets of London are not paved with
gold]

Little Dick ran about till he was tired and it was growing dark. And at
last he sat himself down in a corner and fell asleep. When morning came
he was very cold and hungry, and though he asked every one he met to
help him, only one or two gave him a halfpenny to buy some bread. For
two or three days he lived in the streets in this way, only just able to
keep himself alive, when he managed to get some work to do in a
hayfield, and that kept him for a short time longer, till the haymaking
was over.

After this he was as badly off as ever, and did not know where to turn.
One day in his wanderings he lay down to rest in the doorway of the
house of a rich merchant whose name was Fitzwarren. But here he was soon
seen by the cook-maid, who was an unkind, bad-tempered woman, and she
cried out to him to be off. "Lazy rogue," she called him; and she said
she'd precious quick throw some dirty dishwater over him, boiling hot,
if he didn't go. However, just then Mr. Fitzwarren himself came home to
dinner, and when he saw what was happening, he asked Dick why he was
lying there. "You're old enough to be at work, my boy," he said. "I'm
afraid you have a mind to be lazy."

"Indeed, sir," said Dick to him, "indeed that is not so"; and he told
him how hard he had tried to get work to do, and how ill he was for want
of food. Dick, poor fellow, was now so weak that though he tried to
stand he had to lie down again, for it was