Socrates himself could not have answered this question.
"Did you tell him that your father was an honest, hard-working soap boiler and candle maker?"
"No," said the young man.
"Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me, Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more sense than that?"
Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and looked his finely dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink. He saw himself as he was.
But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy—Abiah, whose heart was always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back."
"I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you."
With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation. We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world."
Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith.
"Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but fitness for work. I will start you in business myself."