An excerpt from the first chapter:
"This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy myself.
Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here that I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no hypocrite. I didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I didn't think the missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my little pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one that has been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning.
Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I used to confront him at recess with the following words: "My name's Tom Bailey; what's your name?" If the name struck me favorably, I shook hands with the new pupil cordially; but if it didn't, I would turn on my heel, for I was particular on this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and Spriggins were deadly affronts to my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.
Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather elderly boys by this time—lawyers, merchants, sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not? Phil Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul at Shanghai, where I picture him to myself with his head closely shaved—he never had too much hair—and a long pigtail banging down behind. He is married, I hear; and I hope he and she that was Miss Wang Wang are very happy together, sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of tea in a skyblue tower hung with bells. It is so I think of him; to me he is henceforth a jewelled mandarin, talking nothing but broken China..."
Contents:
01 I Introduce Myself
02 In Which I Entertain Peculiar Views
03 On Board the Typhoon
04 Rivermouth
05 The Nutter House and the Nutter Family
06 Lights and Shadows
07 One Memorable Night
08 The Adventures of a Fourth
09 I Become an R. M. C.
10 I Fight Conway
11 All About Gypsy
12 Winter at Rivermouth
13 The Snow Fort on Slatter's Hill
14 The Cruise of the Dolphin
15 An Old Acquaintance Turns Up
16 In Which Sailor Ben Spins a Yarn
17 How We Astonished the Rivermouthians
18 A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go
19 I Become A Blighted Being
20 I Prove Myself To Be the Grandson of My Grandfather
21 In Which I Leave Rivermouth
22 Exeunt Omnes
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