"The Prince and the pauper" Mark Twain

"The Prince and the pauper" Mark Twain. Download and read!

Mark Twain - The Prince and the Pauper

London, the middle of the XVI century. On the same day, two boys are born - Tom, the son of the thief John Kenti, the prince and the beggar, huddling in the stinky cul-de-sac Yard Courtyard, and Edward, heir to King Henry the Eighth.

Edward is waiting for the whole of England, Tom does not really need even his own family, where only the father-thief and mother-beggar have something like a bed; to the services of the rest - the spiteful grandmother and twin sisters - only a few piles of straw and scraps of two or three blankets.

In the same slum, in the midst of all scum, there lives an old priest who trains Tom Kenti for reading and writing and even for the beginnings of Latin, but the oldest legends about wizards and kings are the most delightful.

Tom beggars are not very diligent, and laws against beggars are extremely harsh. Beaten for neglecting father and grandmother, hungry (except that the intimidated mother secretly thrust the crust), lying on the straw, he paints himself with sweet pictures of the life of the pampered princes.

Other boys are drawn into his game from the Court of Waste: Tom is a prince, they are a courtyard; all in strict ceremonial.

Once, hungry, beaten, prince and beggar, Tom wanders to the royal palace and looks with such self-oblivion through the trellised gate to the dazzling Prince of Wales that the sentry throws him back into the crowd. The little prince angrily intervenes for him and leads him into his quarters.

He asks Tom about his life in the Court of Waste, and neglected plebeian pleasures seem to him so delicious that he invites Tom to exchange clothes with him. The dressed prince is absolutely indistinguishable from a beggar!

Noticing Tom has a bruise on his arm, he runs to make a sentiment to the sentry - and gets a slap. The crowd, hooting, chasing the "half-witted ragamuffin" along the road. The prince and beggar, after a long ordeal, grabs a huge drunkard over his shoulder-this is John Kent.