“I do not take counsel with my agent, John. He does as I bid him. I could shift his opinions at a word. He is a Tory to-day, and a Whig to-morrow, and anything to anybody. Why do you talk such nonsense to me? Let me tell you that he has already been to ask me what I think of it. He feels some doubt, poor man. Indeed, he is disposed to consider. Bother! what does it matter what he considers?” “If he has changed his mind I have not. Joseph hath ever a coat of many colours.” “I shall tell him,” she cried, laughing. The Quaker rule of repression and non-resistance by no means forbade the use of the brutal bludgeon of sarcasm, as many a debate in Meeting could testify. She rose as she spoke, and my mother said gently: “Thou wilt not tell him, Gainor.” Meanwhile I stood amazed at a talk which so deeply concerned me. “Shall it be a smithy?” said my father. “Oh, what you like. The Wynnes are well down in the world--trade, horseshoeing. Good evening.” “Gainor! Gainor!” cried my mother; but she was gone in wrath, and out of the house. “Thou wilt leave the academy. I have already arranged with Lowry, in South street, to take thee. Three months should answer.” To this I said, “Yes, yes,” and went away but little pleased, my mother saying, “It is only for a time, my son.” V Says my friend Jack in his journal: “The boys were in these times keen politicians whenever any unusual event occurred, and the great pot was like soon to boil furiously, and scald the cooks. Charles Townshend’s ministry was long over. The Stamp Act had come and gone. The Non-importation Agreement had been signed even by men like Andrew Allen and Mr. Penn. Lord North, a gentle and obstinate person, was minister. The Lord Hillsborough, a man after the king’s heart, had the colonial office. The troops had landed in Boston, and the letters of Dickinson and Vindex had fanned the embers of discontent into flame. “Through it all we boys contrived to know everything that was happening. I had a sense of fear about it, but to Hugh I think it was delightful. A fire, a mob, confusion, and disorder appeal to most boys’ minds as desirable. My father was terrified at the disturbance of commerce, and the angry words which began to be heard. Mr. John Wynne very coolly adjusted his affairs, as I have heard, and settled down with the Friends, such as Wain and Shoemaker and Pemberton and the rest, to accept whatever the king might decree.”