The Junto met each Friday. Franklin provided them with a list of “queries” to be discussed. “Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?” Already he was beginning to think in terms of civil rights. “Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?” He knew from personal experience how much it meant to a young man to have friends to give him support and advice. “Which is best: to make a friend of a wise and good man that is poor or of a rich man that is neither wise nor good?” His brief tussle with earning a living had convinced him that wisdom was preferable to riches. “Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summertime?” The latter was one of many scientific “queries” he suggested to the Junto, in line with his own curiosity about the mysteries of life. To improve themselves, to cultivate ethical virtues, to lend a hand to their neighbors—all were included in the Junto’s lofty aims. They composed essays on various subjects. If a member read something of interest in “history, morality, Poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts,” he shared his new knowledge with his fellow members. They were not always serious. Sometimes they met for outdoor sports. They held banquets, composed and sang songs, made jokes, told stories, often had riotous times together. The friendships they formed were firm, lasting as long as they lived. Occasionally Franklin caught sight of Sir William Keith on the street, The former governor would look uncomfortable and slink away. His fortune had deteriorated. Before very long, he fled to England, leaving his wife and daughter penniless; he died in a London debtors’ prison. In the spring of 1728, when Franklin was twenty-two, he and Hugh Meredith were ready to open their own printing shop in a house on High Street. Their first customer was a farmer who gave them five shillings to print an advertisement. No sum ever loomed so large. Customers were few and far between those first months. It was not due to Franklin’s partner that they survived at all. He was rarely sober enough to do a day’s labor. His father had been optimistic in hoping that Franklin could change him. Eventually Hugh admitted that he would never make a printer. “I was bred a farmer, Benjamin. ’Twas folly for me to come to town and apprentice myself to learn a new trade.” They talked the matter over and came to an agreement. Franklin would pay back Hugh’s father the hundred pounds he had advanced for their printing equipment, pay Hugh’s personal debts and give him thirty pounds and a new saddle. Two of his Junto friends loaned him the money he needed. Hugh took off for his farm, leaving Franklin, at twenty-three, the sole owner of the printing shop.