Though Godfrey was highly respected among his associates for his mathematical knowledge, he knew little else, and he was not a very agreeable companion. The mathematical field affords very few subjects for entertaining conversation, and besides Godfrey had a habit, which Franklin said he had often observed in great mathematicians, of expecting universal precision in every thing that was said, of forever taking exception to what was advanced by others, and of making distinctions, on very trifling grounds, to the disturbance of all conversation. He, however, became afterward an eminent man, and though he died at length at a distance from Philadelphia, his remains were eventually removed to the city and deposited at Laurel Hill, where a monument was erected to his memory. The young printers had scarce got their types in the cases and the press in order, before one of Franklin's friends, a certain George House, came in and introduced a countryman whom he had found in the street, inquiring for a printer. They did the work which he brought, and were paid five shillings for it.--Franklin says that this five shillings, the first that he earned as an independent man, afforded him a very high degree of pleasure. He was very grateful too to House, for having taken such an interest in bringing him a customer, and recollecting his own experience on this occasion, he always afterward felt a strong desire to help new beginners, whenever it was in his power. A certain other gentleman evinced his regard for the young printers in a much more equivocal way. He was a person of some note in Philadelphia, an elderly man, with a wise look, and a very grave and oracular manner of speaking. This gentleman, who was a stranger to Franklin stopped one day at the door and asked Franklin if he was the young man who had lately opened a printing house. Being answered in the affirmative he told Franklin that he was very sorry for him, as he certainly could not succeed. Philadelphia, he said, was a sinking place. The people were already half of them bankrupts, or nearly so, to his certain knowledge. He then proceeded to present such a gloomy detail of the difficulties and dangers which Philadelphia was laboring under, and of the evils which were coming, that finally he brought Franklin into a very melancholy frame of mind. [Illustration]