Such was the custom of the time. The diffusion of knowledge lessened the importance of pictorial representation; but the mere date of Franklin's birth--1706--explains in some degree his habitual resort to it. Nearly all the ancient books were illustrated in some way, and nearly every ancient building appears to have had its "sign." When Franklin was a boy in Boston a gilt Bible would have directed him where to buy his books, if he had had any money to buy them with. A gilt sheaf probably notified him where to get those three historic rolls with which he made his entry into Philadelphia. The figure of a mermaid invited the thirsty wayfarer to beer, and an anchor informed sailors where sea-stores were to be had. The royal lion and unicorn, carved in wood or stone, marked public edifices. Over the door of his father's shop, where soap and candles were sold, he saw a blue ball, which still exists, bearing the legible date 1698. Why a blue ball? He was just the boy to ask the question. A lad who could not accept grace before meat without wishing to know why it were not better to say grace once for all over the barrel of pork, would be likely to inquire what a blue ball had in common with soap and candles. His excellent but not gifted sire probably informed him that the blue ball was a relic of the time when he had carried on the business of a dyer, and that he had continued to use it for his new vocation because he "had it in the house." Benjamin, the gifted, was the boy to be dissatisfied with this explanation, and to suggest devices more in harmony with the industry carried on within, so that the very incongruity of his father's sign may have quickened his sense of pictorial effect. Franklin lived long, figured in a great variety of scenes, accomplished many notable things, and exhibited versatility of talent--man of business, inventor, statesman, diplomatist, philosopher; and in each of these characters he was a leader among leaders; but the ruling habit of his mind, his _forte_, the talent that he most loved to exercise and most relished in others, was humor. He began as a humorist, and he ended as a humorist. The first piece of his ever printed and the last piece he ever wrote were both satirical: the first, the reckless satire of a saucy apprentice against the magnates of his town; the last, the good-tempered satire of a richly gifted, benevolent soul, cognizant of human weakness, but not despising it, and intent only upon opening the public mind to unwelcome truth--as a mother makes a child laugh before inserting the medicine spoon. So dominant was this propensity in his youthful days, that if he had lived in a place where it had been possible to subsist by its exercise, there had been danger of his becoming a professional humorist, merging all the powers of his incomparable intellect in that one gift.