CHAPTER XXXIV.
OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE KING'S ARMS.
Our gentlemanly friend Mr. Calamity was now very, very old, long past the milestone of eighty. As Philadelphia grew, the streets lengthening, the fine houses rising higher and higher, he began to doubt that he was a prophet, and he shunned Benjamin Franklin when the latter was in the country.
One day, long before the Stamp Act, he passed the Gazette office, when the prosperous editor appeared.
"It's coming," said he, tap, tapping on. "What did I tell you?"
"What is coming?" asked our vigorous king of prosperity.
"War!" He became greatly excited. "Indians! they're coming with the tommyhawk and scalping knife, and we'll need to be thankful if they leave us our heads."
There were indeed Indian troubles and dire events at that time, but not near Philadelphia.
Time passed. He was a Tory, and he heard of Concord and Lexington, and he ceased to read the paper that Franklin printed, and his cane flew scatteringly as it passed the office door. To him that door was treason.
One evening he lifted his cane as he was passing.