Young Franklin went on in his business. What was he to do? He saw everything with hopeful eyes. But he was young. His heart told him to go on in his undertaking, and he went on. He had been laughed at in Boston, and old Mr. Calamity had risen up here to laugh at him again. He knew not how it was, but it was in him to become a printer. As the young waterfowl knows the water as soon as it toddles from his nest, so young Franklin from his boyhood saw his life in this new element; the press was to be the source of America's rise, power, and glory, the throne of the republic; it was to make and mold and fulfill by its influence public opinion; the same public opinion was to rule America, and the young printer of Philadelphia was to lead the way now, and to reap the fruits of his spiritual resolution after he was seventy years of age. He saw it, he felt it, he knew his own mind. So he left behind old Mr. Calamity for the present, but he was soon to meet him again. He had now taken a third step on the ladder of life. His business should be built upon honor. The next time that he met Mr. Calamity, the old gentleman gave him a view of the prospects of a printer. "If you think that you are going to get your foot on the ladder of life by becoming a printer, you will find that you have mistaken your calling. None of the great men of old were printers, were they? Homer was no printer, was he?" "I have never heard that he was." "Nor did you hear of any one who ever printed the Iliad or the Odyssey. No printer was ever heard of among the immortals. A printer just prints--that is all. Solomon never printed anything, did he?" "I never read that he did, sir." "Nor Shakespeare?" "I never heard that he did, sir." "A printer has no chance to rise; he just builds the ark for Noah to sail in, and is left behind himself." "I hope to print some of my own thoughts, sir." "You do? Ha! ha! ha! Who do you think is going to read them? Your own thoughts--that does give me a stitch in the side, and makes me laugh so loud and swing my cane so high that it sets the cats and dogs to running. See them go over the garden fence! I shall watch your course, and when you begin to scatter your ideas about in the world, I hope I will be living to gather some of them up. I hope they will never lead a revolution!" Franklin's "Ca Ira" were the words that led the French Revolution. FOOTNOTE: [B] The old gentleman who suggests this character was named Mickle or Mikle. CHAPTER XXIV. FRANKLIN'S STRUGGLES WITH FRANKLIN.