Dick worked harder than he had ever worked in all his life before. He never saw Alice except when she went out to walk or ride, for the kitchens were a long way from the parlors above. The cook was cross, the work was dull, and, worst of all, the little, chilly garret in which the boy slept was filled with mice and rats. These worried him so, running over him at night, waking him from the happy dream that he was at home again, that he spent his last penny for a cat which a ragged urchin was carrying through the streets. Soon the mice and the rats ceased to trouble him, and life seemed easier after all. Master Fitzgerald, the merchant in whose kitchens Dick worked, was a kind-hearted man, and whenever he sent out a ship laden with his goods, he let his servants add some venture of their own, too, upon which they could make a profit. Soon after puss had driven away all the rats and the mice in her little master’s garret, the merchant called together his household, and asked each one what they would send with his fine new outward-bound ship. Some brought one thing, some another, but Dick Whittington had only his cat to send. All the servants laughed at him, and the cook called him a little fool for putting so silly a thing on his master’s vessel. But the merchant said that if Dick wished to sell the cat it should go, and pussy was carefully put on board the ship. After she was gone how Dick did miss her! He had never realized how fond he was of her until she was so far away that he could not call her back; and the rats and the mice, as if they knew that there was no cat lying in wait for them, ran back into the garret again. At last Dick grew so discouraged that he packed his clothes in a little bundle and stole out of the house softly one All Hallow’s Eve to run back to his home. There the skies were blue, and the people kind, and even if the streets were not paved with gold, all the woods and fields were yellow with Autumn. [Illustration: SOME BROUGHT ONE THING, SOME ANOTHER, BUT DICK WHITTINGTON HAD ONLY HIS CAT TO SEND.--_Page 194._] But, as he walked quickly along the road that led to the open country, the great Bells of Bow Church began to ring, and the sound came to Dick Whittington’s ears like a voice, for it called, “Turn, turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London!” The little boy listened, and said to himself, “Perhaps there’s good luck yet in store for me!” and once more the Bells of Bow pealed out, “Turn, turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London.”