One day, when he was sixty years of age, just fifty years after his association with Uncle Benjamin, he wandered out into the byways of the old London bookstores.
It was early spring; the winter fogs of London had disappeared, the squares were turning green, the hedgerows blooming, the birds were singing on the thorns. Such a sunny, blue morning might have called him into the country, but he turned instead into the flowerless ways of the book stalls. He wandered about for a time and found nothing. Then he thought of old Humphrey, of whom he had bought books perhaps out of pity. There was something about this man that held him; he seemed somehow like a link of the unknown past. He compelled him to buy books that he did not want or need.
"This is a fine spring morning," said old Humphrey, as he saw the portly form of Franklin enter the door. "I have been thinking of you much of late. I do not seem to be able to have put you out of my mind; and why should I, a fine gentleman like you, and uncommonly civil. I have something that I have been allotting on showing you. It is very curious; it is a library of thirty-six volumes of pamphlets, and it minds me that a more interesting collection of pamphlets was never made. I read them myself in lonesome days when there is no trade. Let me show you one of the volumes."
"No, never mind, my friend. I could not buy the whole library, however interesting it might be. I will look for something smaller. This is a very old bookstore."
"Ay, it is that. It has been kept here ever since the times of the Restoration, and before. My wife's father used to keep it when he was an old man and I was a boy. And now I am an old man. I must show you one of those books or pamphlets. They are all written over."
Benjamin Franklin sat down on a stool in the light, and took up an odd volume of the Canterbury Tales.
Old Humphrey lighted a candle and went into a dark recess. He presently returned, bringing one of the thirty-six volumes of pamphlets.
"My American friend, if one liked old things, and the comments of one dead and gone, this library of pamphlets would be food for thought. Just look at this volume!"
He struck the book against a shelf to remove the dust, and handed it to Franklin.
The latter adjusted his spectacles to the light, and turned over the volume.