"Perhaps we'd better let the lad have his way. He's promised to come home if he's taken sick."
"So let it be, then, Harry. When do you want to go?"
"As soon as I can."
"You'll have to wait till Monday. It'll take a day or two to fix up your clothes," said his mother.
"All right, mother."
"I don't know but you ought to have some new shirts. You haven't got but two except the one you have on."
"I can get along, mother. Father hasn't got any money to spend for me. By the time I want some new shirts, I'll buy them myself."
"Where do you think of going, Harry? Have you any idea?"
"No, mother. I'm going to trust to luck. I shan't go very far. When I've got fixed anywhere I'll write, and let you know."
In the evening Harry resumed the "Life of Franklin," and before he was ready to go to bed he had got two thirds through with it. It possessed for him a singular fascination. To Harry it was no alone the "Life of Benjamin Franklin." It was the chart by which he meant to steer in the unknown career which stretched before him. He knew so little of the world that he trusted implicitly to that as a guide, and he silently stored away the wise precepts in conformity with which the great practical philosopher had shaped and molded his life.