also, he rendered some little services, with his usual obligingness. She saw, with pain, his growing familiarity with the two women, and, one day, took him aside, and addressed him thus: "Young man, I am concerned for thee, as thou hast no friend with thee, and seemest not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is exposed to depend upon it, these are very bad women. I can see it by all their actions; and if thou art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger: they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them."

He was incredulous. She proceeded to mention some circumstances which had escaped his notice, and convinced him, at length, that they were girls of bad character. He thanked her for her motherly advice, and promised to follow it. On reaching New York, they told him where they lived, and invited him to visit them. He kept his word, however, and avoided their house. The day after, the captain of the sloop missed a silver spoon (then rarely seen, and highly prized), as well as some other articles, from the cabin. The theft was brought home to the girls, who were arrested and punished for it-probably whipped in the market-place.

This anecdote has a certain importance, inasmuch as it tends to show that, at the age of eighteen, Benjamin Franklin, despite his deism, was still chaste. Usually, at that early day, a young man, who discovered some flaws in his father's creed, broke away, for a time, from the moral restraints which gave to that creed its value. Exulting in his new-found negatives, the foolish youth strove to differ, in every respect, from his elders, whose narrowness and bigotry made virtue itself disgusting. And this is another and invariable effect of perverting religion into orthodoxy: it renders virtue odious, and vice captivating. It causes virtue to seem the exclusive property of dismal cowards, and makes vice appear synonymous with courage, wit, and spirit. Franklin, with all his great understanding and good heart, was not able long to preserve that inconceivably precious treasure of man and woman, as precious to man as to woman, sexual integrity. But we are permitted to infer that at eighteen he was still virtuous.

Not so his friend Collins, whom he found at New York awaiting his arrival. These two young men had been intimate from childhood. They had read the same books together. Collins had had

more time for study than his friend, and possessed also a remarkable talent for mathematics; one of the surest signs, as Mr. Carlyle thinks, of a superior understanding. During the apprenticeship of Franklin, it was with Collins that he spent his leisure hours, and to Collins that he read his essays. At that time Collins was a sober and industrious youth, esteemed even by several of the clergy, as well as by other men of note, for his learning and talents. But during the absence of Franklin in Philadelphia, he had fallen into habits of intemperance, and when Franklin met him in New York, he found that he had been drunk every day since his arrival, had gambled away all his money, and had behaved "in a very extravagant manner." Franklin was obliged to pay his expenses in New York and during the rest of their journey; which proved a sore calamity to him, and the cause of bitter regret for some years.

Franklin's stay in New York on this occasion was marked by one very agreeable and unexpected incident.

An interest in books, we may premise, was in itself a bond of union between the carly colonists. Books were extremely expensive; public libraries were unknown; private collections were few and small; and the lovers of literature, other than divinity, were not numerous. Women, who are now the chief support of whole departments of literature, read little in those days, and that little was seldom literature. To be a reader of books or to possess a collection of fifty volumes was a distinction in the colonies when Franklin was a young man. The bookish people formed a kind of freemason-like society, who recognized one another, regardless in some degree of the circumstances which usually divided men into ranks and classes. And scholarship, we may add, was deeply honored in the colonies, from the earliest period of their existence.

The Governor of New York, in 1724, was that witty, genial, testy, downright William Burnet (son of the famous bishop of that name), who was wont to "act first and think afterwards,” as he himself confessed, and therefore wasted his life and fine abilities in an endless jangle with the colonial magnates. He had one of the very few good libraries in the new world, and was extremely fond of books and of men who loved them. Learning, from the captain of the sloop, that one of his passengers from Boston had a great many books on board, Governor Burnet asked the captain to bring young Franklin to him. "I waited on him," Franklin too

briefly records, "and should have taken Collins with me had he been sober. The Governor received me with great civility, showed me his library, which was a considerable one, and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me: and, for a poor boy like me, was very pleasing."

Resuming their journey, the two young men proceeded together to Philadelphia. On the way, Franklin received the money due to Mr. Vernon of Newport; and such had been the extravagance of Collins, that he was obliged to spend part of the sum for the traveling expenses of himself and his drunken companion.

Fifty-six years after, he related to Dr. Priestley an anecdote of his descending the Delaware at this time. He told the story to illustrate the truth, that all situations in life have their inconveniences, and that while men feel acutely the evils of their present lot, they neither feel nor know the evils of that for which they long. "In my youth," said the aged philosopher, "I was passenger in a little sloop descending the river Delaware. There being no wind, we were obliged, when the ebb was spent, to cast anchor and wait for the next. The heat of the sun on the vessel was excessive, the company strangers to me, and not very agreeable. Near the river side I saw what I took to be a pleasant green meadow, in the middle of which was a large shady tree, where, it struck my fancy, I could sit and read (having a book in my pocket), and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned; I therefore prevailed with the captain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my meadow was really a marsh, in crossing which, to come at my tree, I was up to my knees in mire: and I had not placed myself under its shade five minutes before the mosquitoes in swarms found me out, attacked my legs, hands, and face, and made my reading and my rest impossible; so that I returned to the beach, and called for the boat to come and take me on board again, where I was obliged to bear the heat I had strove to quit, and also the laugh of the company. Similar cases in the affairs of life have since fre

quently fallen under my observation."*

Sir William Keith, on reading the letter of Franklin's father, was not in the least disposed to give up the scheme of establishing his

* Franklin to Dr. Priestley, 1780. Sparks, viii., 419.

protégé. "Your father," said he, "is too prudent. There is a great difference in persons. Discretion does not always accompany years, nor is youth always without it. But since he will not set you up, I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolved to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." Enchanted with this offer, and believing Sir William Keith to be "one of the best men in the world,” the young man hastened to draw up a list of the articles required, amounting to about a hundred pounds. On receiving the inventory, the Governor asked whether it would not be an advantage for the young printer to go to England and select the materials himself. "Besides," said the Governor, "when there, you may make acquaintances and establish correspondence with booksellers and stationers." The elated youth agreed that this might be advantageous. "Then," said the Governor, "get yourself ready to go with Annis," the captain of the single ship that then plied regularly between London and Philadelphia, sailing from each port once a year.

Some months elapsed before the ship sailed, during which Franklin worked for the eccentric Keimer, and kept secret all that had passed between himself and the Governor of Pennsylvania. Hence, no one told him what a vain, false, gasconading, popularity-hunter this Sir William Keith was.* Relying implicitly upon his promises, Franklin spent many months of happy anticipation.

CHAPTER X.

THE PERFIDY OF SIR WILLIAM KEITH.

ONE of the most joyous half-years of Franklin's life was that which passed while he was waiting for the departure of the annual ship. Youth, hope, prosperity, congenial friends, and reciprocated

*Sir William Keith appears manifestly, not only in his administration, but also in his general conduct, to have been a great solicitor of popularity, and he both possessed and practiced those arts which seldom fail to please the populace."-Proud's History of Pennsylvania ii, 177.

love, combined to render his working days serene, and his holidays memorably happy. The gayety that afterwards charmed the society of three capitals, and enlivened the literature of two countries, made him, at this period, the chief of a set of merry blades, whose Sunday excursions rendered vocal the forests that then overhung the enchanting Schuylkill.

Nevertheless, such is human life, even this happy time had its anguish and its bitterness. John Collins, for some weeks after he had reached Philadelphia, was the plague and shame of Franklin's life. He had become the helpless and unresisting slave of his appetite for drink. Besides living at Franklin's own lodgings and at his expense, he kept borrowing money from him, promising to repay it as soon as he should get employment. But he could not get employment. Franklin saw with dismay the money of Mr. Vernon vanishing before the importunities of his thirsty friend, until so much of it was gone that he lived in dread of its being called for before he could earn enough to replace it. In his cups Collins was very irritable. Franklin, too, was tormented with remorse and dread by the violation of his trust. His indignant remonstrances with Collins provoked angry replies from the young drunkard, and quarrels occurred between them.

The breaking in upon Vernon's money, Franklin deliberately pronounced the first great error of his life, and one which proved his father correct in deciding that he was too young to conduct business. It chanced that the money was not required till Franklin was able to pay it; yet he was long in terror of its being called for, and, still longer, carried about in his breast the dull pang of self-reproach.

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His old friendship for John Collins was worn out at last. lin, Collins, and a party of Philadelphia lads were in a boat on the Delaware, one day, when Collins refused to take his turn at the oar, saying that he meant to be rowed home. "We will not row you," said Franklin. "You must," replied Collins, "or stay all night on the water." The others said, "Let us row, what does it signify?" But Franklin, embittered against him by his previous misconduct, persisted in refusing. Collins swore he would make him row or throw him overboard, and went toward him, stepping on the seats of the boat, to execute his threat. On getting near enough, the maddened youth struck at his old friend. But Frank