He was even in a fair way to forget Boston when an incident occurred of some importance in his life. Robert Holmes, who had married his sister, being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard of him and wrote entreating him to return home. To this appeal Franklin replied giving his reasons for leaving Boston. Now Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, chanced at this time to be at Newcastle, and, being shown the letter by Holmes, was so much impressed with it that he determined to offer encouragement to the writer. Great, then, was the surprise of Benjamin and his master when one day the governor and another gentleman in their fine clothes called at the printing-house and inquired for the young man. They took him to a tavern at the corner of Third Street, and there over the Madeira the governor proposed that Benjamin should start an independent shop, promising in this case to give him the government printing. Benjamin was skeptical, but at last it was decided that he should go to Boston and seek help of his father; and in April, 1724, with a flattering letter from the governor, he set out for his old home. Benjamin's father, however, though pleased by the governor's approval, thought the boy too young to assume so much responsibility, and sent him back to Philadelphia with no money, but with his blessing and abundant good counsel, advising him to restrain his natural tendency to lampoon, and telling him that by steady industry and prudent parsimony he might save enough by the time he was twenty-one to set himself up, and withal promising help if he came near the matter. The return voyage was unimportant save for an amusing incident which showed Franklin's innocence at that time whatever he may have been later on, and for an agreement he made to collect a debt of thirty-five pounds in Pennsylvania for one Vernon,--an agreement which was to cost him considerable anxiety. While stopping in New York, too, his reputation as a reader got him an invitation to visit Governor Burnet, who showed him his library and conversed with him on books and authors. "This," as Franklin observes, "was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me, and for a poor boy like me it was very pleasing." In New York he had picked up his old friend Collins, a companion of his childhood, who had preceded him from Boston. Collins had passed from license of belief to license of morals, and was now besotting himself with drink. On the way to Philadelphia Franklin had collected the money due to Vernon, and Collins pressed him until he drew largely on this sum to help the spendthrift. Franklin regarded this as one of the chief _errata_ of his life, and would have repented his error still more seriously perhaps if Vernon had not allowed him time to make good the defalcation. It was some five years before he was able to restore the money, and then, having paid both principal and interest, he felt a load taken off his mind.