ADDITIONAL TEXTS
FOR READING AND DISCUSSING
(1)
The Whipping Boy
In the afternoon Tom had a few moments to himself, and a lad of about
twelve years of age was brought in to him. He came up to Tom with his head
bowed and fell on one knee before him. Tom sat still and looked at the lad in
silence a moment. Then he said:
“Rise, lad! Who are you? What do you want?”
The boy rose and said:
“You must remember me, My Lord. I am your whipping boy.” “My
whipping
boy?”
“Yes, My Lord. I am Humphrey Marlow.”
Tom did not know what to do or to say.
“It seems to me that I remember you,” he said at last. “But I cannot
remember everything, as I am ill.”
“Oh, my poor master,” cried the whipping boy, thinking to himself: “It is
true — he is mad, the poor fellow. But I forget — I was told not to notice
that anything was wrong with him.”
“I often forget many things these days,” said Tom. “But pay no attention
to it. Just tell me what you want.”
“Two days ago when Your Majesty made three mistakes
in your Greek
composition in the morning lessons — do you remember it?” “Yes, I think I
do,” answered Tom, thinking: “This is not so far from the truth. If
I
had been
having a composition in Greek, I should have made not three mistakes, but
thirty.”
“My Lord, your teacher promised to whip me for it and ... ”
“Whip
you?”
Tom cried in surprise. “Why did he want to whip you for
my mistakes?”
“Ah, My Lord, he always whips you when you don’t know your
lessons.”
“True, true — I have forgotten,” said Tom. “Since you help me to do my
lessons, he says that you don’t teach me well enough,
and if I make a
mistake . ”
“Teach You, My Lord? I, the humblest of your servants? Never! But this
is how it is: nobody may strike the Prince of Wales, so when he makes
mistakes, I — his whipping boy — get the blows. It is my work and I get the
wages for it.”
“And have they beaten you, my poor friend?”
“No, Your Majesty, they were going to beat me today, but they didn’t do
it because of the death of the king. Now you are no more Prince of Wales,
you
are the King of England, and I am afraid that now you will throw all
your books away, because nobody can tell you now what to do and what not
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to do. Then I am lost and my poor sisters with me.”
“Lost? Why?”
“My back is my bread. Oh, My Lord! If you stop studying, you won’t
need any whipping boy and I shall have no work. Don’t turn me away.”
Tom was sorry for the boy. Besides, he thought the boy could be useful
in the future because he lived in the palace and knew a lot. He said:
“Rise, Humphrey Marlow, you and your children will always have the
post of whipping boy at the royal house of England. Very soon I shall take
my books again and study so badly that you will get money three times more
than before.”
“Oh, thank you, My Lord! Now I shall be happy as long as I live,” cried
out the boy.
Tom asked Humphrey to talk about the people in the palace and the
prince’s lessons in the schoolroom. By the end of an hour he knew a lot of
things about the prince; so he decided to talk with Humphrey more the other
day.
(From the
Prince and the Pauper
by Mark Twain)
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