Page:Wanton Tom, or, The merry tricks of Tom Stitch the tailor.pdf/4



4                   The child crying very much, the woman took the cabbage and warmed it, and then fed the babe with it, who ever since hath loved cabbage beyond measure.

CHAP. II. ''Shewing in what manner Tom was brought up. Of is'' ''being bound an Apprentice. How by a mad prank'' he lay with his Mistress; how his Master catched him in bed with her: Likewise how he had him be- fore the Chamberlain for it, and how by a jest he was freed.

IN a few years Tom's mother married again, and lived very happy, put him to school. and there maintained him until he was big enough to be an apprentice; then his mother bade him make choice of                   what handicraft he would, to which he                    answered, That of all trades he loved that of a tailor best. His mother, with all care imaginable, provided him a master, whose name was Mr Deceitful, who had a severe wife to servants, and Tom, being more addicted to waggery than ordinary, she was the more severe on him; for every morn- ing if he lay in bed after five of the clock, she would go up with a cudgel in her hand, and pull Tom out of bed, and beat him like a stock fish. She using him so                   once or twice a weak, made him study how to prevent it; so one morning she coming