awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor and the want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This, therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."

Leaving the Meeting-House, he bent his steps toward the river again, reading faces as he went (not from impertinence, as will be seen), till he met a young man, a Quaker, whose countenance was so pleasing that he accosted him, requesting, as a stranger, to be informed where he could find lodging. The reply of the young man justified the favorable impression made by his countenance; for it manifested that considerate and honest regard for the welfare of the youthful stranger, which, though really a duty, is of a class not often performed, nor even remembered; but which showed that this young Quaker comprehended and recognised, on this occasion at least, his obligation as a neighbor, in that wide and generous sense, in which it is inculcated in the beautiful parable of The Good Samaritan. They were near a

tavern with the sign of The Three Mariners, to which the young man pointed, saying, in answer to the inquiry,

"Here is a house where they receive strangers, but it is not a reputable one; if thou wilt walk with me, I will show thee a better one"-and then conducted him to The Crooked Billet. There Benjamin took dinner, and while thus engaged he there again perceived, from the manner in which he was questioned, that he was "suspected of being a runaway." When he had finished his meal he asked for a bed, and being taken to one, he threw himself upon it, without waiting to undress, and slept till called to supper; after which, he "went to bed again very early, and slept very soundly till next morning.”

PHILADELPHIA PRINTERS.

45

Having now, by abundant rest and food, recovered from the fatigue of his toilsome journey from New York, though his chest containing his better clothes had not yet arrived, he dressed himself as neatly as circumstances would permit, and went forth to call upon Andrew Bradford, the printer.

Mr. Bradford was in his printing-office, where Benjamin, to his surprise, also found with him his father, Mr. William Bradford, who, coming from New York on horseback, had reached Philadelphia before him. The old gentleman instantly recognised Benjamin and introduced him to his son, who received him very civilly, and gave him a breakfast, but did not then need another journeyman, having recently hired one. He informed him, however, that there was another printer in the place, by the name of Keimer, who had lately opened a printing-office, and who might perhaps employ him; but kindly added that if he should not be wanted there, he was welcome to lodge at his own house, and he would give him something to do, from time to time, till he could procure fuller employment.

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The elder Bradford obligingly went to Keimer's with Benjamin, and on finding him in his shop, said— Neighbor, I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." Upon this, Keimer, after asking a few questions and putting into his hand a composing-stick, to see how he worked, told him that just then he had nothing for him to do, but would employ him soon. Keimer had never

supposing him to

seen the elder Bradford before, and be a resident of the town favorably disposed toward him, conversed freely with him about his own affairs; and having, unguardedly, dropped a hint that he expected, shortly, to be enabled to secure to himself most of the printing business of the place, the crafty father,

warily avoiding any disclosure of his relationship to Andrew Bradford, gradually pumped from the communicative Keimer, a full account of his plans and prospects, as well as the personal influences and other means, on which he relied for the attainment of his objects; and having thus got all he wanted, the cunning old man went away, leaving Benjamin and Keimer together. The latter, on being informed by his new acquaintance who the old man was, experienced no little surprise and chagrin.

The whole interview, in the deceitful and dishonest craftiness practised by one of the parties, and in the weak and leaky folly with which the other betrayed his most important secrets, to a person whom he did not know, furnished to Benjamin an impressive lesson of the value of circumspection and a discreet reserve, as being only the dictate of ordinary prudence, in all intercourse with strangers upon matters of business, and as generally indispensable to the successful management of private affairs, amid the keen competitions of life.

Upon inspecting the condition of Keimer's printingoffice, Benjamin found it to be very much as might have been expected, from such a lax and careless character, as the one just now disclosed, and serving to betoken it still more fully. The whole equipment appears to have consisted of "an old damaged press and a small wornout font of English types," which Keimer himself was using in setting up an Elegy to the memory of Aquila Rose, the lately deceased foreman of Andrew Bradford's office; "an ingenuous young man," says Franklin, "of excellent character, much respected in the town, secretary of the assembly, and a pretty poet."

In recounting these incidents Franklin adds, that "Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He could not be said to write them; for his method was to

KEIMER-HIS CHARACTER.

47

compose them in the types, directly out of his head." As there was no written copy, only one pair of cases, and little if any more letter than the Elegy alone would require, the compositor-poet could receive no aid, unless from his muse, in committing his verses to type. Benjamin, however, made himself useful by overhauling the old press, which Keimer had neither used, nor knew how to use; and when he had put it in working order, and had promised to come and work off the Elegy as soon as it was ready, he returned to Bradford, who set him upon a small job, and with whom, for the time being, he quartered. In the course of a few days, it being announced to Benjamin that the Elegy was ready, he went and put it through the press, as he had promised; and Keimer having now procured another pair of cases, set him at work upon a pamphlet, which had just been sent in to be reprinted.

Neither of these men, however, as Franklin found, had more than a very scanty knowledge of the trade they had undertaken. Bradford, it appears, had not only never been bred a printer, but was very illiterate; while Keimer, though he had received more general instruction and was more acquainted with books, knew little or nothing of any part of his business, except merely the setting of types. And though the former was doubtless the superior in point of plain sense and general repute as a citizen, yet the latter, from his peculiarities of temper and habits of thinking, was clearly the more amusing of the two, as an individual man. was, indeed, an oddity, and his character presented not a little of the grotesque.

He

He had, at an earlier period, belonged to one of the strange sects of those days, called the French prophets, and he could perform their enthusiastic exercises. this time," however, says Franklin, "he did not profess

"At

any particular religion, but something of all, upon occasion; was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his composition."

As a further specimen of him it may be mentioned that Keimer had a house, but no furniture; so that he could not lodge his new journeyman, whose boarding at Bradford's, nevertheless, while working for himself, he disliked. He therefore procured quarters for Benjamin at the house of his future father-in-law, Mr. Read, where, as he says of himself long after, "my chest of clothes being come, I made a rather more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read, than I had done, when she first happened to see me eating my roll in the

street."

Being now agreeably settled, with sufficient employment to enable him, by his own industry and frugality, to provide for himself, he began to make acquaintances among the young people of the town," particularly such as were "lovers of reading, with whom he spent his evenings very pleasantly," and endeavored to wean his thoughts from Boston as much as possible.

While thus comfortably situated, working cheerfully at his trade and contented with his prospects, some events occurred, in the course of a few months, which not only led him to revisit his native place much sooner than he had anticipated, but interrupted his present connexions, and gave a new face and direction to his affairs.

One of his sisters had married Robert Holmes, who was master of a sloop engaged in the coasting-trade between Boston and the towns on the Delaware bay and river. In the course of the winter immediately succeeding Benjamin's fixing himself in Philadelphia, the winter of 1723-'4, Holmes arrived with his sloop at Newcastle, about forty miles below Philadelphia, and