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what's to be done? Vernon will, no doubt, soon learn that I have collected his money; and will of course be daily expecting to hear from me. But what can I write? To tell him that I have collected his money, but Jent it to a poor, pennyless sot, will sound like a pretty story to a man of business! And if I dont write to him, what will he think of me, and what will become of that high opinion he had formed of me, on which it appeared he would have trusted me with thousands? So you see, I have got myself into a pretty hobble. And worse than all yet, how shall I ever again lift up my booby face to my affectionate brother John, after having thus basely stabbed him, through his friend, as also through the honour of our family! O my dear, dear old father; now I see your wisdom and my own folly! A thousand times did you tell me I was too young; too inexperienced yet, to undertake by myself.—But no. It would not all do. For the life of you, you could not lend or drive such divire counsel into this conceited noddle of mine. I despised it as the weakness of old age, and much too slow for me. I wanted to save time, aud get three or four years ahead of other young men; and that tempted me to disobedience. Well, I am justly punished for it! My bubble is broke. And now I see I shall be thrown back as long as if I had continued the apprentice of my brother James!!"

Ο young men! young men! you that with segars in your mouths, and faces flushed with Ibations of whiskey, can fancy yourselves clever fellows, and boast the Jong list of your dear friends, O think of the curses that Ben bestowed on his dear friend Collins, for bringing him in such a scrape, and learn that an idle, drinking rascal has no friends. If you think otherwise, it is only a proof that you dont even yet understand the meaning of the word. FRIENDS indeed! you talk of friends! What, you, who instead of nobly pressing on for VIRTUE and KNOWLEDGE and WEALTH, to make yourselves an honour and blessing to your connexions, are constantly, by your drunken and gambling courses, making yourselves a disgrace and curse to them. And when like that fool in the parable, your all is gone, then instead of modestly going with him into the fields to feed the swine, you have the imprudence to quarter your

rags and red noses on your dear friends, spunging and borrowing of them as long as they'll lend. And if at last, they should get wise enough to refuse such unconscionable leechers, as wou d suck every drop of their blood. instantly you can turn tail and abuse your dear friends as though they were pick-pockets.-Witness now master Collins.

Just as Ben was in the midst of his fever and pet, on discovering as aforesaid, the great injury which Collins had done him, who but that promising youth should come in, red faced and blowzy, and with extreme confidence demand of him a couple of dollars. Ben, rather tartly replied that he had no more to spare. "Pshaw," answered Collins, "tis only a brace of dollars I want, just to treat an old Boston acquaintance I fell in with at the tavern, and you know Vernon tipt you the shiners' 'tother day to the tune of a round hundred.” “Yes,” replied Ben, "But what with two dollars at one time and two at another, you have taken nearly the whole."Well man, and what of that, rejoined Collins, swaggeringly, "suppose I had taken the whole; yes and twice as much, sha'nt I gent into fine business presently, some head clerk's place, or governor's secretary? And then you'll see how I'll tumble you in the yellow boys hand over hand, and pay you off these little beggarly itens all at a dash."

"Fair words, Mr. Collins," answered Ben, "butter no parsnips. And you have been so long talking, at this rate, and yet doing nothing, that I really am afraid—” "Afraid the d," interrupted Collins, insultingly, "afraid of what? But see here, Mr. Franklin; I came to you, not to preach to me, but to lend me a couple of dollars. And now all that you have to do is just to tell me, at a word, whether you can lend them or not.” "Well then, at a word, I cannot," said Ben.

"Well then, you are an ungrateful fellow," retorted. Collins.

"Ungrateful asked Ben utterly astonished.

"Yes, an ungrateful fellow," replied Collins. "You dare not deny, sir, that it was I who first took you out of the tallow pots and grease of your old father's candle shop in Boston and made a man of you. And now after all, when I only ask you to lend me a couple of shabby

dollars to treat a friend, you can refuse me! Well keep your dollars to yourself and be dd for an ungrateful fellow as you are!" then wheeling on his hee he went off. blustering and swollen with passion, as though be had been most outrageously ill-treated. Soon as Ben had recovered himself a little from the stupefaction into which this tornado of Collins had thrown him, he clapped his hands and rolling up his eyes like one devoutly given, exclaimed, "O Ulysses, well called wise! You though a heathen, could lash your sailors to the mast to keep them from going ashore to be made hogs of at the grog shops of Circe, while I. the son of an old presbyterian christian, the son of his old age and heir elect of all his wisdom, have been here now for weeks together, lending money to brutalize my own friend! Would to heaven, I had been but half as wise as you, I should not have been so shamefully fleeced, and now so grossly insulted by this young swine, Collins. But what brain of man could have suspected this of him? After taking him out of the stye of a jug tavern in New York, where he was up to the back in dirt and debt-after paying all his expenses to Philadelphia, and here supporting him cheerfully out of my hard and scanty earnings,—after submitting, for cheapness sake, to sleep in the same bed with him every night, scorched with his rum-fevered flesh, drenched in his nocturnal sweats, and poisoned with his filthy breath, and still worse, after lending him nearly the whole of Vernon's money, and thereby brought my own silly nose to the grindstone, perhaps for many a doleful year, I should now at last be requited with all this abuse; d-n-d for an ungrateful fellow!! Well, I don't know where all this is to end: but I will still hope for the best. I hope it will teach me this important lesson, never to have any thing to do with a sot again as long as I live. But stop, though I refused him money to get drunk with, I still feel a friendship for this wretched young man. this Collins; and will still work to support him while he stays with me. It is likely, that now, that he can get no more money from me, he will take his departure; and then, if my senses remain, I think I will forever hereafter shun, as I would a beast, the young man who drinks drams and grog'

From his going off in such a pet, Ben had supposed at

Brst, that Collins would not return again. But having no money nor friends in Philadelphia, the poor fellow came back at night, to his old roosting place with Ben, by whom he was received with the same good humour as if nothing had happened. But though the injured may forgive, the injurer seldom does. Collins never looked straight at Ben after this. The recollection of the past kept him sore. And to be dependent on one whom in the pride of former days he had thought his inferior, rendered his condition so uneasy, that he longed for an opportunity to get out of it. Fortunately an opportunity soon offered. The captain of a trader to the West Indies falling in with him one day at a tavern, where hé was spouting away at a most eloquent rate, was so charmed with his vivacity and wit, which most young fools, half shaved. are apt to figure in, that he offered him the place of private tutor in a rich family in Jamaica. Dame fortune in her best humour, with all her cogged dice in the bargain, could not, as Collins himself thought, have thrown him a luckier hit. Young black eyed creoles, with fourth proof spirit, in all its delicious modifications, of slings, bumbo, and punch, dancing before his delignted fancy, in such mazes of pleasurable promise, that 'tis likely he would hardly have exchanged places with the grand Turk. With a countenance glowing with joy, he hastened to Ben to tell him the glorious news, and to take leave. After heartily congratulating him on his good fortune, Ben asked, if he would not want a little money to fit him out. Collins thanked him, but said that the captain who had engaged him, was such a noble-hearted fellow that he had, of his own accord, advanced him three half joes to put him into what he called "complete sailing trim." Though Ben had of late been so scurvily treated by Collins, as to think it very desirable to be quit of him: yet when the time came, he found it no such easy matter for the heart to dissolve the ties of a long and once pleasant friendship. He had passed with Collins many of his happiest hours, and those too, in the sweetest season of life, and amidst pleasures which best lift the soul from earth, and spring those unutterable hopes she delights in. How then, without tears, could be for the last time, feel the strong pressure of his hand, and catch the parting glance?

On the other side, through watery eyes and broken accents. poor Collins sobbed out his last adieu, not without hearty thanks for the many favors which Ben had done him, and solemn promises of speedily writing to him and remitting all his money. Charity would fain believe that he fully so intended, but alas! nor money, nor friend did Ben ever hear of afterwards. This elegant victim of rum was no doubt presented by the captain to the wealthy family in Jamaica. And being introduced, under the genial influence perhaps of a cheerful glass, 'tis likely that with his advantages of education and eloquence he made such a figure in the eyes of those wealthy and hospitable islanders, that they were in raptures with him, and fondly counted that they had got an elegant young schoolmaster, who was to make scholars and wits of the whole family. Perhaps too, their darling hope, a blooming daughter, was seen to heave the tender sigh, as blushing she darted the sidelong glance upon him. But alas! the next day sees the elegant you g schoolmaster dead drunk! and the amiable family all in the dumps again. Tis more than probable that after having been alternately received and dismissed from a dozen wealthy families, he sunk at length, in tattered garments and a grog-blossomed face, the mournful victim of intemperance. And now perhaps after all the fair prospects of his youth, and all the fond hopes of his parents, poor Collias, untimely buried in a foreign church yard, only serves for the pious, to point their children to his early tomb, and remind them how vain are talents and education without the restraints of religion.

CHAPTER XXII.

SOON as Ben reached Philadelphia as aforesaid, he waited on the governor, who received him with joy, eagerly calling out, "well my dear boy, what success? What success?" Ben, with a smile, drew his father's letter from his pocket. The governor snatched it, as if ail impatient to see its contents, which he ran through with a devouring haste. When he was

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