Tom's Early Life
- We skip over all of that baby stuff and move on to when Tom is a young kid. He lives in Offal Court on Pudding Lane, and his neighborhood is basically the worst one you can imagine.
- Tom has two twin sisters, Bet and Nan, who are 15 years old; a gentle mother; and a terrible father and grandmother, who beat him when he doesn't earn enough money begging.
- Tom also has a friend called Father Andrew, who teaches him to read, write, and speak Latin.
- All in all, it's not a bad life, at least not in Tom's eyes. He doesn't know any better.
- The best time is the summer. That's when Father Andrew tells Tom all kinds of stories about princes, fairies, kings, and castles.
- It's not long before Tom spends all day imagining these wonderful stories and starts to think of himself as a prince. He even gets the whole neighborhood to form an imaginary Royal Court.
- Most of the time, Tom's dreams of being a prince give him comfort in his bad situation.
- After one particular dream, though, in which he saw himself living in the lap of luxury, Tom begins to feel worse about his situation.