Colonial America, and England in the time of the Puritans... not exactly the time or places you'd expect to find a footloose and fancy-free beggar hopping and skipping back and forth across the Atlantic. His secret? Begging, borrowing and stealing. Also, the kindness of others. A shipwreck? A flooded farm? A burned down farmhouse? These weren't calamaties to the King of the Beggars, no, quite the opposite, those were stages for him to debut a new character and then let charity find him.