JACK SEES LONDON AND THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER

The stir and prodigious reach of London had appalled the young man.  His fancy had built and peopled it, but having found no sufficient material for its task in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, had scored a failure.  It had built too small and too humbly.  He was in no way prepared for the noise, the size, the magnificence, the beauty of it.  In spite of that, something in his mental inheritance had soon awakened a sense of recognition and familiarity.  He imagined that the sooty odor and the bells, and the clatter of wheels and horses’ feet and the voices—­the air was full of voices—­were like the echoes of a remote past.

The thought thrilled him that somewhere in the great crowd, of which he was now a part, were the two human beings he had come so far to see.  He put on his best clothes and with the letter which had been carefully treasured—­under his pillow at night and pinned to his pocket lining through the day—­set out in a cab for the lodgings of Doctor Franklin.  Through a maze of streets where people were “thick as the brush in the forests of Tryon County” he proceeded until after a journey of some thirty minutes the cab stopped at the home of the famous American on Bloomsbury Square.  Doctor Franklin was in and would see him presently, so the liveried servant informed the young man after his card had been taken to the Doctor’s office.  He was shown into a reception room and asked to wait, where others were waiting.  An hour passed and the day was growing dusk when all the callers save Jack had been disposed of.  Then Franklin entered.  Jack remembered the strong, well-knit frame and kindly gray eyes of the philosopher.  His thick hair, hanging below his collar, was now white.  He was very grand in a suit of black Manchester velvet with white silk stockings and bright silver buckles on his shoes.  There was a gentle dignity in his face when he took the boy’s hand and said with a smile: 

“You are so big, Jack.  You have built a six foot, two inch man out of that small lad I knew in Albany, and well finished, too—­great thighs, heavy shoulders, a mustache, a noble brow and shall I say the eye of Mars?  It’s a wonder what time and meat and bread and potatoes and air can accomplish.  But perhaps industry and good reading have done some work on the job.”

Jack blushed and answered.  “It would be hard to fix the blame.”

Franklin put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and said: 

“She is a lovely girl, Jack.  You have excellent good taste.  I congratulate you.  Her pulchritude has a background of good character and she is alive with the spirit of the New World.  I have given her no chance to forget you if that had been possible.  Since I became the agent in England of yourself and sundry American provinces, I have seen her often but never without longing for the gift of youth.  How is my family?”