RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 



a large porringer of hot-water gruel, sprinkled with pepper, 

 crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price 

 of a pint of beer, viz, three halfpence. This was a more 

 comfortable, as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their 

 heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with their beer 

 all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the ale- 

 house, and used to make interest with me to get beer — their 

 light, as they phrased it, being out. I watched the pay-table 

 on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for 

 them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on 

 their accounts. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good 

 riggitey that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my conse- 

 quence in the society. My constant attendance (I never 

 making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master; and 

 my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being 

 put upon works of despatch, which are generally better paid \ 

 so I went on now very agreeably.' 



He spent about eighteen months altogether in London, 

 during most part of which time he worked hard, he says, at 

 his business, and spent but little upon himself except in seeing 

 plays, and in books. At last his friend Mr. Denham, the 

 gentleman with whom, as we mentioned before, he had got 

 acquainted on his voyage to England, informed him he was 

 going to return to Philadelphia to open a store, or mercantile 

 establishment, there, and offered him the situation of his clerk 

 at a salary of fifty pounds. The money was less than he was 

 now making as a compositor ; but he longed to see his native 

 country again, and he accepted the proposal. Accordingly, 

 they set sail together; and, after a long voyage, arrived in 

 Philadelphia on the nth of October 1726. Franklin was at 

 this time only in his twenty-first year, and he mentions having 



