ollowed after him, passed him, and plunged
down the stairs two steps at a stride, muttering, "'Tis that scurvy
villain that claimed he was his son. I have lost thee, my poor little
mad master--it is a bitter thought--and I had come to love thee so! No!
by book and bell, NOT lost! Not lost, for I will ransack the land till I
find thee again. Poor child, yonder is his breakfast--and mine, but I
have no hunger now; so, let the rats have it--speed, speed! that is the
word!" As he wormed his swift way through the noisy multitudes upon the
Bridge he several times said to himself--clinging to the thought as if it
were a particularly pleasing one--"He grumbled, but he WENT--he went,
yes, because he thought Miles Hendon asked it, sweet lad--he would ne'er
have done it for another, I know it well."

Chapter XIV. 'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'

Toward daylight of the same morning, Tom Canty stirred out of a heavy
sleep and opened his eyes in the dark. He lay silent a few moments,
trying to analyse his confused thoughts and impressions, and get some
sort of meaning out of them; then suddenly he burst out in a rapturous
but guarded voice--

"I see it all, I see it all! Now God be thanked, I am indeed awake at
last! Come, joy! vanish, sorrow! Ho, Nan! Bet! kick off your straw and
hie ye hither to my side, till I do pour into your unbelieving ears the
wildest madcap dream that ever the spirits of night did conjure up to
astonish the soul of man withal! . . . Ho, Nan, I say! Bet!"

A dim form appeared at his side, and a voice said--

"Wilt deign to deliver thy commands?"

"Commands? . . . O, woe is me, I know thy voice! Speak thou--who am I?"

"Thou? In sooth, yesternight wert thou the Prince of Wales; to-day art
thou my most gracious liege, Edward, King of England."

Tom buried his head among his pillows, murmuring plaintively--

"Alack, it was no dream! Go to thy rest, sweet sir--leave me to my
sorrows."

Tom slept again, and after a time he had this pleasant dream. He thought
it was summer, and he was playing, all alone, in the fair meadow called
Goodman's Fields, when a dwarf only a foot high, with long red whiskers
and a humped back, appeared to him suddenly and said, "Dig by that
stump." He did so, and found twelve bright new pennies--wonderful
riches! Yet this was not the best of it; for the dwarf said--

"I know thee. Thou art a good lad, and a deserving; thy distresses shall
end, for the day o