BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 25 



been sent for from London arrived; and, settling with 

 Keimer, he and his partner took a house, and commenced 

 business. ' We had scarce opened our letters,' says he, ' and 

 put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance 

 of mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in 

 the street, inquiring for a printer. All our cash was novr 

 expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to 

 procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first- 

 fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than 

 any crown I have since earned ; and, from the gratitude I felt 

 towards House, has made me often more ready than perhaps 

 I otherwise should have been, to assist young beginners.' 

 He had, in the autumn of the preceding year, suggested to a 

 number of his acquaintances a scheme for forming them- 

 selves into a club for mutual improvement; and they had 

 accordingly been in the habit of meeting every Friday evening 

 under the name of the Junto. All the members of this asso- 

 ciation exerted themselves in procuring business for him ; and 

 one of them, named Breinthal, obtained from the Quakers 

 the printing of forty sheets of a history of that sect of 

 religionists, then preparing at the expense of the body. 

 * Upon these,' says Franklin, ' we worked exceeding hard, for 

 the price was low. It was a folio. I composed a sheet a 

 day, and Meredith worked it off at press. It was often eleven 

 at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my 

 distribution for the next day's work; for the little jobs sent 

 in by our other friends, now and then, put us back. But 

 so determined was I to continue doing a sheet a day of 

 the folio, that one night, when, having imposed my forms, 

 I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident 

 was broken, and two pages (the half of the day's work) 



