uld fly again some
day. The victories of the vanquished are the brightest of all.

Franklin, after having been thus given over to the waste barrel by his
father, now resolved to acquire a strong, correct, and impressive prose
style of writing. He found Addison's Spectator one of the best of all
examples of literary style, and he began to make it a study. In works of
the imagination he read De Foe and Bunyan.

This good resolution was his second step up on the ladder of life.

Others were contributing to his brother James's paper, why should not
he? But James, after the going out of the poetic meteor, might not be
willing to consider his plain prose.

Benjamin Franklin has now written an article in plain prose, which he
wishes to appear in his brother's paper. If it were accepted, he would
have to put it into type himself, and probably to deliver the paper to
its patrons. He is sixteen years old. He has become a vegetarian, and
lives by himself, and seeks pleasure chiefly in books.

It is night. There are but few lamps in the Boston streets. With a
manuscript hidden in his pocket Benjamin walks slyly toward the office
of James Franklin, Printer, where all is dark and still. He looks
around, tucks his manuscript suddenly under the office door, turns and
runs. Oh, how he does glide away! Is he a genius or a fool? He wonders
what his brother will say of the manuscript, when he reads it in the
morning.

In the morning he went to his work.

Some friends of James came into the office.

"I have found something here this morning," said James, "that I think is
good. It was tucked under the door. It seems to me uncommonly good. You
must read it."

He handed it to one of his friends.

"That is the best article I have read for a long time," said one of the
callers. "There is force in it. It goes like a song that whistles. It
carries you. I advise you to use it. Everybody would read that and like
it. I wonder who wrote it? You should find out. A person who can write
like that should never be idle. He was born to write."

James handed it to another caller.

"There are brains in that ink. The piece flows out of life. Who do you
think wrote it?"

"I have no idea," said James.--"Here, Ben, set it up. Here's nuts for
you. If I knew who wrote it I would ask the writer to send in other
articles."

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Charles Dickens's novels have had
a sale equaled by a few books in the world. The two aut