Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/92

82 work for us. Breintnal, among others, obtained for us, on the part of the Quakers, the printing of forty ſheets of their hiſtory; of which the reſt was to be done by Keimer. Our execution of this work was by no means maſterly; as the price was very low. It was in folio, upon pro patria paper, and in the pica letter, with heavy notes in the ſmalleſt type. I compoſed a ſheet a day, and Meredith put it to the preſs. It was frequently eleven o’clock at night, ſometimes later, before I had finiſhed my diſtribution for the next day's talk; for the little things which our friends occaſionally ſent us, kept us back in this work: but I was ſo determined to compoſe a ſheet a day, that one evening, when my form was impoſed, and my day's work, as I thought, at an end, an accident having broken this form, and deranged two complete folio pages, I immediately diſtributed, and compoſed them anew before I went to bed.

This unwearied induſtry, which was perceived by our neighbours, began to acquire us reputation and credit. I learned, among other things, that our new printing-houſe being the ſubject of converſation at a club of merchants, who met every evening, it was the general opinion that it would fail; there being already two printing-houſes in the town, Keimer's and Bradford's. But Dr. Bard, whom you and I had occaſion to ſee, many years after, at his native town of St. Andrew's in Scotland, was of a different opinion. "The induſtry of this Franklin (ſaid he) is ſuperior to any thing of the kind I have ever witneſſed. I ſee him ſtill at work when I return from the club at night, and he is at it again in the morning before his neighbours are out of bed." This account ſtruck the reſt of the aſſembly, and ſhortly after one of its members came to