“I’m afraid it’s not _all_ true, though a great deal of it is. In the story, he’s a poor boy who leaves London with a bundle on his back, to seek his fortune. Stopping to rest on Highgate Hill he hears the bells of Bow calling him to return, for he shall be Lord Mayor of London. Well, I’m afraid he wasn’t a poor boy. He was the son of a country gentleman, and he was sent to live with a relation of his, a great London merchant called Sir John Fitzwarren. Dick was an industrious boy while he was learning his trade, and now he has grown very rich. His wife is Alice Fitzwarren, his master’s daughter, and he is Lord Mayor. So a good deal of the story is true after all.” “But the cat?” said Betty. “Isn’t it true about his lovely cat?” “_Something_ must be true about the cat, because later on, the image of a cat was put on all the houses that were built with the money Dick Whittington left for that purpose. So a cat must have had something to do with his success. I only wish we knew exactly what it was! Dick Whittington is now so wealthy that he sometimes gives banquets to the King, and he has a splendid house not far from the Chepe.” “He looks nice and kind,” said Betty. “He is very generous, and has done much for London. Already he is building a monastery and some almshouses for poor people.” “Why, there are some Whittington Almshouses at Highgate.” “Yes. But they were only built about a hundred years ago. They were built, however, with Dick Whittington’s money, and it was a nice thought, wasn’t it, to put them where, according to the story, he heard Bow Bells?” “They said ‘_Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London!_’ And now he _is_ Lord Mayor, and there he goes riding by. It seems too good to be true that I’ve actually seen him, Godmother!” declared Betty excitedly. “I used to love the picture-book of Dick Whittington we had in the nursery when I was little. And I loved the pantomime about him too. It was so _jolly_ to hear the bells ringing when Dick sat on the stile at Highgate and listened to them.” “There’s another old rhyme about Bow Bells, which tells a pretty story about these young ’prentices you see all round you, standing at the doors of their masters’ shops and shouting, ‘Buy! buy! buy!’ This is the tale. At one time an order was given by the Lord Mayor that Bow Bell should ring every night at nine o’clock. It was the signal for the shops to be closed. But according to the ’prentices the bell always rang late, and so kept them at work longer than there was any occasion. They were angry about this, and made a rhyme which they wrote out and put up against the clock: ‘Clerk of the Bow Bell, with the yellow lockes, For thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.’ To which the bell-ringer replied in another rhyme, ‘Children of Chepe, hold you all still, For you shall have the Bow Bell rung at your will.’”