The closing portion of this na[:i]ve narrative is as interesting in its way as the opening.  The idea that Philadelphia could be passed in the darkness and not discovered seems almost ludicrous when we consider its present many miles of river front, and the long-drawn-out glow of illumination which it casts across the stream.  Nothing could be more indicative of its village-like condition at the time of Franklin’s arrival, and its enormous growth since.  Nor are the incidents and conditions of the journey less striking.  The traveller, making the best time possible to him, had been nearly five full days on the way, and had experienced a succession of hardships which would have thrown many men into a sick-bed at the end.  It took youth, health, and energy to accomplish the difficult passage from New York to Philadelphia in that day; a journey which we now make between breakfast and dinner, with considerable time for business in the interval.  Verily, the world moves.  But to return to our traveller’s story.

“I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there.  I was in my working-dress, my best clothes coming round by sea.  I was dirty from my being so long in the boat.  My pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no one, nor where to look for lodging.  Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage.  At first they refused it, on account of my having rowed, but I insisted on their taking it.  Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but little.

“I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near Market Street, where I met a boy with bread.  I had often made a meal of dry bread, and, inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the baker’s he directed me to.  I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had at Boston; that sort, it seems, was not made in Philadelphia.  I then asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none.  Not knowing the different prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give me three-penny-worth of any sort.  He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls.  I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.

“Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife’s father, when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance.  Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river-water, and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.