When James began to issue a newspaper, Franklin helped him print it, and delivered copies to customers. He wrote articles and slipped them under the printing-house door, and James published them, without knowing who was their author. Later Franklin wrote clever, audacious, and humorous articles on the questions of the day, which were widely read and much talked about. So things continued until he was seventeen years old, when he ran away--but not to sea. He and his brother quarrelled often. Benjamin the apprentice was saucy and provoking, and James the master was hot-tempered and beat his younger brother severely. After a particularly bad quarrel, Franklin sold some of his books, and took passage on a sloop bound for New York. Arriving at New York, he found no employment there, and went on to Philadelphia. THE THREE ROLLS Early in the morning of an October day, young Benjamin Franklin, seventeen years old and seeking his fortune, reached Philadelphia. He was tired and hungry, and had only a dollar of his little fund left. He stopped at a baker’s, and bought three big puffy rolls. He put a roll under each arm, and, munching the third, walked along Market Street. In the doorway of a house, stood a young girl. She saw the awkward, handsome boy, trudging past hungrily eating a big roll. She laughed to herself; she thought it funny to see him with his broad-brimmed hat, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes all shabby and dusty, and his great pockets stuffed with stockings and shirts. So she laughed to herself, did Deborah Read. And little she knew that in a few years, she would become that boy’s wife! But so it happened. Young Benjamin Franklin found work in a printer’s shop. He came to lodge at Deborah Read’s home. In a few years, he owned his own printing press. He married Deborah Read. He became a well-known printer. He issued an influential newspaper, and published “Poor Richard’s Almanack.” He was industrious, studious, thrifty, and prosperous. In time, he became the most famous and learned citizen of Pennsylvania, and a great American Patriot. STANDING BEFORE KINGS When the American Colonies rose against the exactions of England, Benjamin Franklin was called upon to serve his Country as a diplomat in France and England. “My father,” wrote Franklin, “having among his instructions to me when a boy frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, ‘Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men,’ “I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think that I should ever literally _stand before Kings_, which, however, has since happened, for I have stood before _five_, and even had the honour of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.” THE WONDERFUL KITE EXPERIMENT