"The same sun, sir! the same sun!" replied the cockney, rather nettled, "I am not positive of that sir. But admitting that it is the same sun, it does not follow that it gives the same light in America as in England. Every thing, you know, suffers by going to the West, as the great French philosophers have proved; then why not the sun?"
Ben said he wondered the gentleman should talk of the sun going to the west.
"What, the sun not go to the west!" retorted the cockney, quite angry, "a pretty story, indeed. You have eyes, sir; and don't these show you that the sun rises in the east and travels to the west?"
"I thought, sir," replied Ben, modestly, "that your own great countryman, sir Isaac Newton, had satisfied every body that it is the earth that is thus continually travelling, and not the sun, which is stationary, and gives the same light to England and America."
Palmer, who had much of the honest Englishman about him, equally surprised and pleased to see Ben thus chastise the pride and ignorance of his foreman, put a stop to the conversation by placing a composing stick in the hands of Ben, while the journeymen gathering around, marvelled hugely to see the young North American take a composing stick in his hand!
Having spent a moment or two in running his eyes over the letter cases, to see if they were fixed as in the printing-offices in America, and glancing at his watch, Ben fell to work, and in less than four minutes finished the following—
"And Nathaniel said, can there any thing good come out of Nazareth?—Philip said, come and see."
Palmer and his workmen were petrified. Near eighty letters set up in less than four minutes, and without a blunder? And then such a delicate stroke at their prejudice and nonsense! Ben was immediately employed.
This was a fine introduction of Ben to the printing office, every person in which seemed to give him a hearty welcome; he wore his rare talents so modestly.
It gave him also a noble opportunity to be useful, which he failed not to improve.