was the
first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."

[Footnote 11: Penny: an English coin worth two cents.]

[Footnote 12: Deborah (Deb'o-rah).]

114. Franklin finds work; he goes back to Boston on a visit; he learns
to stoop.--The next day the young man found some work in a
printing-office. Six months afterward he decided to go back to Boston
to see his friends. He started on his journey with a good suit of
clothes, a silver watch, and a well-filled purse.

While in Boston, Franklin went to call on a minister who had written
a little book[13] which he had been very fond of reading. As he was
coming away from the minister's house, he had to go through a low
passage-way under a large beam. "Stoop! Stoop!" cried out the
gentleman; but Franklin did not understand him, and so hit his head
a sharp knock against the beam. "Ah," said his friend, as he saw him
rubbing his head, "you are young, and have the world before you;
_stoop_ as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps."
Franklin says that this sensible advice, which was thus beat into
his head, was of great use afterward; in fact, he learned then how
to stoop to conquer.

[Illustration: FRANKLIN LEARNING TO STOOP.]

[Footnote 13: The name of this book, written by the Rev. Cotton Mather,
was _Essays to do Good_.]

115. Franklin returns to Philadelphia; he goes to London; water
against beer.--Franklin soon went back to Philadelphia. The governor
of Pennsylvania then persuaded him to go to London, telling him that
he would help him to get a printing-press and type to start a
newspaper in Philadelphia.

When Franklin reached London, he found that the governor was one of
those men who promise great things, but do nothing. Instead of buying
a press, he had to go to work in a printing-office to earn his bread.
He stayed in London more than a year. At the office where he worked
the men were great beer-drinkers. One of his companions bought six
pints a day. He began with a pint before breakfast, then took another
pint at breakfast, then a pint between breakfast and dinner, then
a pint at dinner, then a pint in the afternoon, and, last of all,
a pint after he had done work. Franklin drank nothing but water. The
others laughed at him, and nicknamed him the "Water-American"; but
after a while they had to confess that he was stronger than they were
who drank so much strong beer.

The fact was that Franklin could beat them both at work and at pla