Foundling Mick
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| Author | Jules Verne |
|---|---|
| Original title | P'tit-Bonhomme |
| Illustrator | Léon Benett |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Series | The Extraordinary Voyages #39 |
| Genre | Adventure novel |
| Publisher | Pierre-Jules Hetzel |
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Publication date
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1893 |
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Published in English
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1895 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| OCLC | 12820930 |
| Preceded by | Claudius Bombarnac |
| Followed by | Captain Antifer |
Foundling Mick (A Lad of Grit; French: P'tit-Bonhomme, lit. Lit'l Fellow) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne first published in 1893. It describes adventures in Ireland, more specifically the rags to riches tale of an orphan.
The story begins in Westport, Connacht, with the wandering puppeteer Thornpipe demonstrating his puppets to the destitute populace. After the mechanism animating the puppets unexpectedly goes off, the onlooking public with a priest among them discovers that the mechanism was operated by a tortured, hungry, pale boy of scarcely 3 years, concealed in the cart, whom the master spurred with a whip, claiming that the mechanism was operated by a dog. Revealed later to be abandoned while only 6 months old, the boy does not know his proper name; being the protagonist, he is known only as Lit'l Fellow (P'tit-Bonhomme) for the remainder of the story. The public confronts Thornpipe and stands up for the boy, driving Thornpipe out of town.
With no local family able or willing to raise the foundling, he is given to an orphanage known as Ragged School in the neighboring town of Galway. Neither O'Bodkins, the principal of the school, nor his assistants (with the exception of the 16-year-old Grip) care much about the well-being of children, let alone their conduct or education, and Lit'l Fellow continues to suffer, now at the hands of his peers (particularly Carker, the leader of the gang) for honesty and dignity which he has begun to show at such early years, and hence refusal to follow the gang's ways of theft and panhandling. Lit'l Fellow recalls what he remembers of the early years of his life to Grip (who has become a close friend of the boy), mentioning an evil woman Hard and a compassionate girl named Sissy—the only person who cared for him in his early years, and whom he indeed came to think of as an elder sister. After the death of yet another child who lived with them, Lit'l Fellow ran away from Hard's hut, only to be found by Thornpipe.
This chapter of Lit'l Fellow's life ends when he finds a bottle of vodka, which he decides to bring to the orhpanage in order to consult with Grip regarding how to return it to the owner. Unfortunately, he is noticed by Carker, who proceeds to appropriate the bottle, lock up Grip and Lit'l Fellow in the attic, and throw a drinking party. In the orgy that ensues, the drunk boys set the school building on fire, and Grip, without any way out of the attic, in desperation throws Lit'l Fellow off the roof to the ground, where the latter is caught by the onlookers.
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