rst 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.

"Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this
time had many cleanly-dressed people in it, who were all
walking the same way. I joined them, and was thereby led
into the great meeting-house of the Quakers, near the
market. I sat down among them, and, after looking round a
while and hearing nothing said, became very drowsy through
labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast
asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when
some one was kind enough to arouse me. This, therefore, was
the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."

There is nothing more simple, homely, and attractive in
literature than Franklin's autobiographical account of the
first period of his life, of which we have transcribed a
portion, nor nothing more indicative of the great changes
which time has produced in the conditions of this c