“I suppose you will be going to England if the Doctor is detained there,” said Jack.

“No, sir,” Mrs. Franklin answered.  “I wouldn’t go out on that ol’ ocean—­not if ye would give me a million pounds.  It’s too big an’ deep an’ awful!  No, sir!  Ben got a big bishop to write me a letter an’ tell me I’d better come over an’ look a’ter him.  But Ben knowed all the time that I wouldn’t go a step.”

There were those who said that her dread of the sea had been a blessing to Ben, for Mrs. Franklin had no graces and little gift for communication.  But there was no more honest, hard-working, economical housewife in Philadelphia.

Jack went to the shop and was put to work next morning.  He had to carry beer and suffer a lot of humiliating imposition from older boys in the big shop, but he bore it patiently and made friends and good progress.  That winter he took dancing lessons from the famous John Trotter of New York and practised fencing with the well-known Master Brissac.  He also took a course in geometry and trigonometry at the Academy and wrote an article describing his trip to Boston for The Gazette.  The latter was warmly praised by the editor and reprinted in New York and Boston journals.  He joined the company for home defense and excelled in the games, on training day, especially at the running, wrestling, boxing and target shooting.  There were many shooting galleries in Philadelphia wherein Jack had shown a knack of shooting with the rifle and pistol, which had won for him the Franklin medal for marksmanship.  In the back country the favorite amusement of himself and father had been shooting at a mark.

Somehow the boy managed to do a great deal of work and to find time for tramping in the woods along the Schuylkill and for skating and swimming with the other boys.  Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Bache grew fond of Jack and before the new year came had begun to treat him with a kind of motherly affection.

William, the Doctor’s son, who was the governor of the province of New Jersey, came to the house at Christmas time.  He was a silent, morose, dignified, self-seeking man, who astonished Jack with his rabid Toryism.  He nettled the boy by treating the opinions of the latter with smiling toleration and by calling his own father—­the great Doctor—­“a misguided man.”

Jack forged ahead, not only in the printer’s art, but on toward the fulness of his strength.  Under the stimulation of city life and continuous study, his talents grew like wheat in black soil.  In the summer of seventy-three he began to contribute to the columns of The Gazette.  Certain of his articles brought him compliments from the best people for their wit, penetration and good humor.  He had entered upon a career of great promise when the current of his life quickened like that of a river come to a steeper grade.  It began with a letter from Margaret Hare, dated July 14, 1773.  In it she writes: