"Perhaps I may improve by practice," said Benjamin, "so that I may yet be able to write something worthy of being read. You couldn't expect me to write very well at first." "But you are not a poet," continued Mr. Franklin. "It is not in you, and, even if it was, I should not advise you to write it; for poets are generally beggars,--poor, shiftless members of society." "That is news to me," responded Benjamin. "How does it happen, then, that some of their works are so popular?" "Because a true poet can write something worthy of being read, while a mere verse-maker, like yourself, writes only doggerel, that is not worth the paper on which it is printed. Now I advise you to let verse-making alone, and attend closely to your business, both for your own sake and your brother's." Mr. Franklin was rather severe upon Benjamin, although what he said of his verses was true. Still, it was a commendable effort in the boy to try to improve his mind. Some of the best poets who have lived wrote mere doggerel when they began. Many of our best prose-writers, too, were exceedingly faulty writers at first. It is a noble effort of a boy to try to put his thoughts into writing. If he does not succeed in the first instance, by patience, energy, and perseverance he may triumph at last. Benjamin might not have acted wisely in selling his verses about town, but his brother, so much older and more experienced than himself, should bear the censure of that, since it was done by his direction. The decided opposition that Mr. Franklin showed to verse-making put a damper upon Benjamin's poetical aspirations. The air-castle that his youthful imagination had built, in consequence of the rapid sale of his literary wares, tumbled to ruin at once. He went back to the office and his work quite crest-fallen. "What has happened now?" inquired James, noticing that Benjamin looked somewhat less smiling. "Father doesn't think much of my printing and selling verses of my own," replied Benjamin. "He has been giving me a real lecture, so that I am almost ashamed of myself." "How is that," said James, "does he dislike your pieces?" "Yes; and he will not allow that they have any merit. He read them over in his way, and counted faults enough to show that there is very little poetry in me. A beggar and a poet mean about the same thing to him." "He ought to remember that you are young," answered James, "and may improve wonderfully in future. You can't expect to write either prose or poetry well without beginning and trying." "All the trying in the world can do nothing for me, I should judge from father's talk," added Benjamin, rather seriously.