ndle maker?"

"No," said the young man.

"Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money
that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should
hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to
start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me,
Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes
already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now
return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me
to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so
agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more
sense than that?"

Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and looked his finely
dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink.
He saw himself as he was.

But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy--Abiah, whose heart was
always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing
to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back."

"I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to
Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is
just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a
part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you."

With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation.
We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A
good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world."

Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith.

"Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too
young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at
eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but
fitness for work. I will start you in business myself."

Silence Dogood rejoiced. Here was a man who was "better than a
father"--the "best man in all the world," he thought.

"Make out an inventory of the things that you need to begin the business
of a printer, and I will send to London for them."

Benjamin did so, an inventory to the amount of one hundred pounds. He
brought it to the Governor, who greatly surprised him by a suggestion.

"Perhaps," said Sir William, "you would like to go to London and get the
machinery yourself. I would give you a letter of credit."

Was it raining gold?

"I would like to go to London