he old way of removing difficulties in the management
of a state. It succeeded. A new day is at hand. Its forerunners are
here. He has not seen the signs in the sky or heard the cocks crowing.
He is still asleep. I know many men in England whom he could not buy."

Only three days before the philosopher had had a talk with North at the
urgent request of Howe, who, to his credit, was eager for
reconciliation. The King's friend and minister was contemptuous.

"I am quite indifferent to war," he had cynically declared at last.
"The confiscations it would produce will provide for many of our
friends."

It was an astonishing bit of frankness.

"I take this opportunity of assuring Your Lordship that for all the
property you seize or destroy in America, you will pay to the last
farthing," said Franklin.

This treatment was like that he had received from other members of the
government since the unfortunate publication of the Hutchinson, Rogers
and Oliver letters. They seemed to entertain the notion that he had
forfeited the respect due a gentleman.

A few days after Franklin had given air to his suspicion that the
government party would try to tow him into port three stout British
ships had broken their cables on him. An invitation not likely to be
received by one who had really forfeited the respect of gentlemen was
in his hands. The shrewd philosopher did not think twice about it. He
knew that here was the first step in a change of tactics. He could not
properly decline to accept it and so he went to dine and spend the
night with a most distinguished company at the country seat of Lord
Howe.

On his return he told his young friend of the portal and lodge in a
great triumphal arch marking the entrance to the estate of His
Lordship; of the mile long road to the big house straight as a gun
barrel and smooth as a carpet; of the immense single oaks; of the
artificial stream circling the front of the house and the beautiful
bridge leading to its entrance; of the double flight of steps under the
grand portico; of the great hall with its ceiling forty feet high,
supported by fluted Corinthian columns of red-veined alabaster; of the
rare old tapestries on a golden background in the saloon; of the
immense corridors connecting the wings of the structure. The dinner
and its guests and its setting were calculated to impress the son of
the Boston soap boiler who represented the important colonies in
America.

Some of