exclaimed, upon being told by his mate, that there was nothing more to employ them about, "_Oh, make them scour the anchor._" His absent-mindedness, when electrocuting a turkey, in setting up an electric circuit through his own body, which cost him the loss of his consciousness, and a numbness in his arms and the back of his neck, which did not wear off until the next morning, put him in mind of the blunderer who, "being about to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron." At times, there was a subjective quality about his stories which lifted them above the level of mere jests. When the suggestion was made that, in view of the favor conferred upon America by the repeal of the Stamp Act by Parliament, America could not, with any face of decency, refuse to defray the expense incurred by Great Britain in stamping so much paper and parchment, Franklin did not lack an apposite story in which a hot iron was again made to figure. The whole Proceeding [he said] would put one in Mind of the Frenchman that used to accost English and other Strangers on the Pont-Neuf, with many Compliments, and a red hot Iron in his Hand; _Pray Monsieur Anglois_, says he, _Do me the Favour to let me have the Honour of thrusting this hot Iron into your Backside?_ Zoons, what does the Fellow mean! Begone with your Iron or I'll break your Head! _Nay Monsieur_, replies he, _if you do not chuse it, I do not insist upon it. But at least, you will in Justice have the Goodness to pay me something for the heating of my Iron._ This story was too good not to have a sequel. As you observe [he wrote to his sister Jane] there was no swearing in the story of the poker, when I told it. The late new dresser of it was, probably, the same, or perhaps akin to him, who, in relating a dispute that happened between Queen Anne and the Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning a vacant mitre, which the Queen was for bestowing on a person the Archbishop thought unworthy, made both the Queen and the Archbishop swear three or four thumping oaths in every sentence of the discussion, and the Archbishop at last gained his point. One present at this tale, being surprised, said, "But did the Queen and the Archbishop swear so at one another?" "O no, no," says the relator; "that is only _my way_ of telling the story." Another rather elaborate story was prompted by Franklin's disapproval of the Society of the Cincinnati.