ld be made.

"He is a young man about my age, a printer, and he is going to New
York to get work," replied John.

"Why don't he get work in Boston?" inquired the captain.

John saw that there was no evading the captain's questions, and so he
suddenly resolved to fabricate a story, in other words, to tell a base
lie.

"Well," said John, "if I must tell you the whole story, the case is
this. He is a young fellow who has been flirting with a girl, who
wants to marry him, and now her parents are determined that he shall
marry her, and he is determined that he will not, and he proposes to
remove secretly to New York. He would have come to see you himself,
but it is not safe for him to appear out so publicly, and therefore he
sent me to do the business."

A youth who can fabricate a falsehood so unblushingly as John did this
is a candidate for ruin. The reader will not be surprised to learn,
before the whole story is told, that he became a miserable, wicked
man. This single lie proved that he was destitute of moral principle,
and would do almost anything to carry his project.

For some unaccountable reason, the captain was taken with this device,
and consented to carry Benjamin to New York. He arranged to receive
him clandestinely, and to have him on his way before any suspicion of
his plans was awakened.

John hastened to inform Benjamin of the success of his enterprise, and
to congratulate him upon his fair prospect of getting away.

"Money is the next thing," said Benjamin. "I can't go without money. I
must sell my books for something, though I dislike to part with them."

"They will sell quick enough," said John, "and will bring you a very
pretty sum to start with."

Benjamin lost no time in disposing of his little library for what it
would bring, and he managed to get his clothes together without
exciting suspicion; and, with the assistance of John, he boarded the
sloop privately just before she sailed.

"Good luck to you, Ben," said John, as they shook hands.

"Good bye," answered Benjamin with a heavy heart, just beginning to
feel that he was going away from home. "See that you tell no tales out
of school."

Thus they parted; and the sloop sailed for New York, where she arrived
in three days. Benjamin did not know a person in that city, nor had he
a single letter of recommendation to any one, and the money in his
pocket was but a trifle. It was in October, 1723, that he arrived in
New York. Think of a