ked to think what he would do if he could for every bright
person he met; and these things which he would like to do he promised,
and his promises often ended in disappointment. It delighted him to see
faces light up with hope. Did he intend to deceive? No. He had a heart
to bless the whole world. He was for a time a very popular Governor, but
he who had given away expectations that but disappointed so many hearts
was at last disappointed in all his expectations. He was greatly pleased
with young Benjamin Franklin when he first met him, just as he had been
with many other promising young men. He liked a young man who had the
hope of the future in his face. This young printer who had entertained
Boston under the name of Silence Dogood won his heart on a further
acquaintance, and so he used to invite him to his home. He there showed
him how essential a good printer would be to the province; how such a
young man as he would make a fortune; and he urged him to go back to
his father in Boston and borrow money for such an enterprise. He gave
him a long letter of commendation to his father, a droll missive indeed
to carry to clear-sighted, long-headed Josiah Franklin.

With this grand letter and twenty-five pounds in silver in his pocket
and a gold watch besides, and his vision full of rainbows, he returned
to the Puritan town. He went to the printing office, which was again
under the charge of his brother James. He was finely dressed, and as he
had come back with such flattering prospects he had a grain of vanity.

He entered James's office. The latter looked at him with wide eyes, then
turned from him coldly.

But Silence Dogood was not to be chilled. The printers flocked around
him with wonder, as though he had been a returning Sindbad, and he began
to relate to them his adventures in Philadelphia. James heard him with
envy, doubtful of the land "where rocs flew away with elephants." But
when Benjamin showed the men his watch, and finally shared with them a
silver dollar in hospitalities, he fancied that his brother had come
there to insult him, and he felt more bitterly toward him than ever
before. Benjamin had much to learn in life. He and his brother,
notwithstanding their good Quaker-born mother, had not learned the
secret of the harmony of Abraham and Lot.

But one of these lessons of life our elated printer was to learn, and at
once.

He returned to his home at the Blue Ball. His parents had not heard from
him si