All Offal Court was just like the Canties. Drinking and fighting were there every night. Broken heads were as common as hunger in that place. Yet little Tom was not unhappy. All the Offal Court boys lived like that and thought it was correct. When he came home empty-handed at night, he knew his father and grandmother would curse and beat him. In the night his mother would slip to him and give him something to eat.
So Tom’s life went along quite well. By day he begged, and by night he listened to Father Andrew’s tales and legends about giants and fairies, and kings and princes. His head was full of these wonderful things, and he dreamed of seeing a real prince, with his own eyes.
He often read the priest’s old books, and his dreams and reading worked some changes in him by-and-by. His dream-people were so fine that he wished to be clean and better dressed. He began to wash himself sometimes in the Thames.
By-and-by Tom’s reading and dreaming about princes’ life had such a strong effect on him that he began to ACT the prince, unconsciously. His speech and manners became ceremonious and courtly to everybody’s admiration and amusement. Tom’s influence among young people began to grow. He seemed to know so much! and he could do and say such marvellous things! and he was so wise! Now grown people brought their problems to Tom, and were often astonished at the wisdom of his decisions. In fact he was a hero to all who knew him except his own family who saw nothing in him.
Privately, after a while, Tom organised a royal court! He was the prince; his friends were his guards, lords and ladies, and the royal family. Daily the mock prince was greeted with elaborate ceremonies, which Tom read about in his books. After that, he would go beg for money, eat whatever he could find, and then go home and lay on foul straw, dreaming.
Presently his wish to see a real prince became the only passion of his life. One January day, he was walking around Mincing Lane and Little East Cheap, hour after hour, bare-footed and cold, looking in at shop windows. It was raining. At night Tom reached home so wet and tired and hungry that even his father and grandmother didn’t bother him.
For a long time his hunger kept him awake; but at last he fell asleep, and dreamt of romantic lands, of jewelled princes who live in palaces, and had servants flying to execute their orders.