u will stick to a
vegetable diet."

Benjamin was here aiming at some diversion, since Keimer was a great
eater, and thought much of a savoury dish. Benjamin wanted to starve
him a little, as he thought some of his preaching and practice did not
correspond.

"I should die," said Keimer, "if I adopt such a diet; my constitution
will not bear it."

"Nonsense!" answered Benjamin. "You will be better than you are now.
So much animal food is bad for any one."

"What is there left to eat when meat is taken away?" inquired Keimer.
"Little or nothing, I should think."

"I will pledge myself to furnish recipes for forty palatable dishes,"
answered Benjamin, "and not one of them shall smell of the flesh-pots
of Egypt."

"Who will prepare them? I am sure no woman in this town can do it."

"Each dish is so simple that any woman can easily prepare it," added
Benjamin.

Keimer finally accepted the proposition. He was to become a
vegetarian, and Benjamin was to embrace formally the long-beard
doctrine, and observe the seventh day for a Sabbath. A woman was
engaged to prepare their food and bring it to them, and Benjamin
furnished her with a list of forty dishes, "in which there entered
neither fish, flesh, nor fowl." For about three months Keimer adhered
to this way of living, though it was very trying to him all the
while. Benjamin was often diverted to see his manifest longings for
fowl and flesh, and expected that he would soon let him off from
keeping the seventh day and advocating long beards. At the end of
three months, Keimer declared that he could hold out no longer, and
the agreement was broken. It was a happy day for him; and to show his
gladness, he ordered a roast pig, and invited Benjamin and two ladies
to dine with him. But the pig being set upon the table before his
guests arrived, the temptation was so great that he could not resist,
and he devoured the whole of it before they came, thus proving that he
was a greater pig than the one he swallowed.

It should be remarked here, that for some time Benjamin had not
followed the vegetable diet which he adopted in Boston. The
circumstances and reason of his leaving are thus given by himself:--

"In my first voyage from Boston to Philadelphia, being becalmed
off Block Island, our crew employed themselves in catching cod,
and hauled up a great number. Till then, I had stuck to my
resolution to eat nothing that had had life; and on this occasion