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 being to come
round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out
with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for
lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing and want of rest, I was
very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar,
and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the
boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my rowing;
but I insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous
when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps
through fear of being thought to have but little.

[Footnote 16: From Chapters I and II of the "Autobiography."]

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I
met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring
where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to,
in Second street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in
Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I
asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not
considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater
cheapness nor the names of his bread, I had him give me three
pennyworth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy
rolls. I was surprized 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;[17] 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 draft 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.

[Footnote 17: Deborah was Mr. Read's daughter's name. Her grave,
alongside Franklin's, in Philadelphia, has been a place of much