Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/89

79 There are in every country moroſe beings, who are always prognoſticating ruin. There was one of this ſtamp at Philadelphia. He was a man of fortune, declined in years, had an air of wiſdom, and a very grave manner of ſpeaking. His name was Samuel Mickle. I knew him not; but he ſtopped one day at my door, and aſked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-houſe. Upon my anſwering in the affirmative, he ſaid that he was very ſorry for me, as it was an extenſive undertaking, and the money that had been laid out upon it would be loſt, Philadelphia being a place falling into decay; its inhabitants having all, or nearly all of them, been obliged to call together their creditors. That he knew, from undoubted fact, the circumſtances which might lead us to ſuppoſe the contrary, ſuch as new buildings, and the advanced price of rent, to be deceitful appearances, which in reality contributed to haſten the general ruin; and he gave me ſo long a detail of misfortunes, actually exiſting, or which were ſoon to take place, that he left me almoſt in a ſtate of deſpair. Had I known this man before I entered into trade, I ſhould doubtleſs never have ventured. He continued however to live in this place of decay, and to declaim in the ſame ſtyle, refuſing for many years to buy a houſe, becauſe all was going to wreck; and in the end I had the ſatisfaction to ſee him pay five times as much for one as it would have coſt him had he purchaſed it when he firſt began his lamentations.

I ought to have related, that, during the autumn of the preceding year, I had united the majority of well-informed perſons of my acquaintance into a club, which we called by the name of the Junto, and the object of which was to improve our underſtanding. We met every Friday