"How can you get away without letting him know it?" "That remains to be seen," answered Benjamin. "I shall want some of your help about it, I guess." "I am at your service," said John, "though it seems very little that I can do to hasten your flight;" but he had hardly uttered the last sentence before a new thought flashed upon his mind, and he added with great earnestness, "Yes, I can, too; I have seen the captain of that New York sloop in the harbour, and I can make a bargain with him to take you there." "But he will want to know who I am, and will refuse to take me when he finds that I am a runaway." "I can manage that, if you will leave it to me," answered John. "I will pledge you that he will never know that your name is Franklin." "I agree, then, to commit myself to your care. See that you manage the affair well, for to New York I must go." They parted; and John hurried away to see the aforesaid captain. "Can you take a friend of mine to New York?" he asked. "That depends on circumstances," answered the captain. "Who is your friend?"--a very natural inquiry,--precisely such a one as Benjamin thought would be made. "He is a young man about my age, a printer, and he is going to New York to get work," replied John. "Why don't he get work in Boston?" inquired the captain. John saw that there was no evading the captain's questions, and so he suddenly resolved to fabricate a story, in other words, to tell a base lie. "Well," said John, "if I must tell you the whole story, the case is this. He is a young fellow who has been flirting with a girl, who wants to marry him, and now her parents are determined that he shall marry her, and he is determined that he will not, and he proposes to remove secretly to New York. He would have come to see you himself, but it is not safe for him to appear out so publicly, and therefore he sent me to do the business." A youth who can fabricate a falsehood so unblushingly as John did this is a candidate for ruin. The reader will not be surprised to learn, before the whole story is told, that he became a miserable, wicked man. This single lie proved that he was destitute of moral principle, and would do almost anything to carry his project. For some unaccountable reason, the captain was taken with this device, and consented to carry Benjamin to New York. He arranged to receive him clandestinely, and to have him on his way before any suspicion of his plans was awakened. John hastened to inform Benjamin of the success of his enterprise, and to congratulate him upon his fair prospect of getting away. "Money is the next thing," said Benjamin. "I can't go without money. I must sell my books for something, though I dislike to part with them." "They will sell quick enough," said John, "and will bring you a very pretty sum to start with."