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and fight till all are slain, and ‘tis so fine to see, and costeth but a farthing—albeit ’tis main hard to get the farthing please your worship.”
    “Tell me more.”
    “We lads of Offal Court do strive against each other with the cudgel, like to the fashion of the ’prentices, some times.”
    The prince’s eyes flashed. Said he:
    “Marry, that would I not mislike. Tell me more.”
    “We strive in races, sir, to see who of us shall be fleetest.”
    “That would I like also. Speak on.”
    “In summer, sir, we wade and swim in the canals and in the river, and each doth duck his neighbor, and spatter him with water, and dive and shout and tumble and—”
    “’Twould be worth my father’s kingdom but to enjoy it once! Prithee go on.”
    “We dance and sing about the Maypole in Cheapside; we play in the sand, each covering his neighbor up; and times we make mud pastry—oh, the lovely mud, it hath not its like for delightfulness in all the world!—we do fairly wallow in the mud, sir, saving your worship’s presence.”
    “Oh, prithee, say no more, ‘tis glorious! If that I could but clothe me in raiment like to thine, and strip my feet, and revel in the mud once, just once, with none to rebuke me or forbid, meseemeth I could forego the crown!”
    “And if that I could clothe me once, sweet sir, as thou art clad—just once—”
    “Oho, wouldst like it? Then so shall it be. Doff thy rags, and don these splendors, lad! It is a brief happiness, but will be not less keen for that. We will have it while we may, and change again before any come to molest.”
     

    “THE TWO WENT AND STOOD SIDE BY SIDE BEFORE A GREAT MIRROR”

    A few minutes later the little Prince of Wales was garlanded with Tom’s fluttering odds and ends, and the little Prince of Pauperdom was tricked out in the gaudy plumage of royalty. The two went and stood side by side before a great mirror, and lo, a miracle: there did not seem to have been any change made! They stared at each other, then at the glass, then at each other again. At last the puzzled princeling said:
    “What dost thou make of this?”
    “Ah, good your worship, require me not to answer. It is not meet that one of my degree should utter the thing.”
    “Then will I utter it. Thou hast the same hair, the same eyes, the same voice and manner, the same form and stature, the same face and countenance, that I bear. Fared we forth naked, there is none could say which was you, and which the Prince of Wales. And, now that I am clothed as thou wert clothed, it seemeth I should be able the more nearly to feel as thou didst when the brute soldier—Hark ye, is not this a bruise upon your hand?”
    “Yes; but it is a slight thing, and your worship knoweth that the poor man-at-arms—”
    “Peace! It was a shameful thing and a cruel!” cried the little prince, stamping his bare foot. “If the king—Stir not a step till I come again! It is a command!”
    In a moment he had snatched up and put away an article of national importance that lay upon a table, and was out at the door and flying through the palace grounds in his bannered rags, with a hot face and glowing eyes. As soon as he reached the great gate, he seized the bars, and tried to shake them, shouting:
    “Open! Unbar the gates!”
    The soldier that had maltreated Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince burst through the portal, half smothered with royal wrath, the soldier fetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling to the roadway, and said:
    “Take that, thou beggar’s spawn, for what thou got’st me from his Highness!”
    The crowd roared with laughter. The prince picked himself out of the mud, and made fiercely at the sentry, shouting:
    “I am the Prince of Wales, my person is sacred; and thou shalt hang for laying thy hand upon me!”
    The soldier brought his halberd to a present-arms and said mockingly:
    “I salute your gracious Highness.” Then angrily, “Be off, thou crazy rubbish!”
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