provoking." James was increasingly jealous and exacting. At length a
very violent quarrel arose between them. The elder brother even
undertook to chastise his younger brother, whom he still affected to
regard as his apprentice. The canceling of the terms of indenture, he
regarded as a secret act, intended merely to outwit his opponent.
Franklin, burning with indignation, resolved no longer to continue in
his brother's employment, and went to several other printers in
Boston, hoping to enter into a new engagement. But his brother had
preceded him, giving his own version of the story, and even declaring
his brilliant brother to be an infidel and an atheist.

Benjamin resolved to run away; for he still felt the binding
obligation of his apprenticeship, while he tried to satisfy his mind
that the unjust conduct of James entitled him to violate the
obligation. There was a vessel about to sail for New York. He sold
some of his books to pay his passage; and going on board secretly at
night, he solicited the captain to aid him in concealing him, with the
_false_ statement that he had become involved in a love adventure with
a young girl; that she had subsequently proved to be a bad character;
that her friends insisted on his marrying her; and that his only
refuge was to be found in flight.

His passage to New York was swift and pleasant. It is said that having
adopted the vegetarian diet, he doubted our right to deprive an animal
of life for our own gratification in eating. The sloop was one day
becalmed off Block Island. The crew found it splendid fishing ground;
the deck was soon covered with cod and haddock. Franklin denounced
catching the fishes, as murderous, as no one could affirm that these
fishes, so happy in the water, had ever conferred any injury upon
their captors. But Benjamin was blessed with a voracious appetite. The
frying pan was busy, and the odor from the fresh fish was exceedingly
alluring. As he watched a sailor cutting open a fish, he observed in
its stomach a smaller fish, which the cod had evidently eaten.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "if you can eat one another, I surely have a right
to eat you."

All his scruples vanished. He sat down with the rest to the sumptuous
repast, and never after seemed to have any hesitancy in gratifying his
appetite.

Benjamin tells this story in his autobiography, and shrewdly adds,
quoting from some one else,

"So convenient a thing it is to be a _reasonable_ creature