"How is that, Ben? I thought your brother would treat you with more consideration after you immortalized yourself as an editor. I knew you had a hard time with him before the Courant was started." John Collins knew somewhat of Benjamin's troubles, the first two years of his apprenticeship.
"He has been worse since my prominence on the Courant; that is, at times. I think my success aroused his jealousy, so that it fretted him to see me, his apprentice, occupy a higher position than himself. Once in a while he has seemed to be pleased with my prominence on the paper, and then again it annoyed him."
"I should think you had helped him out of trouble enough to stir up his gratitude a little, even if he had no pride in possessing so bright a brother."
"Brother! brother!" exclaimed Benjamin. "He never thought of that relation. I was his apprentice, to be lorded over until twenty-one years of age. I do not think he would have treated the greatest stranger as an apprentice more unkindly than he has me. He seemed to think that the relation of master to an apprentice obliterates all blood relationship."
"That is unfortunate for both of you," remarked John, "but most unfortunate for him, whom public opinion will judge as a brother, and not as a master. But how will you get along with your indenture if you leave him?"
"I am justified by the circumstances in using the indenture, on the back of which is his own endorsement of my freedom. He released me from all obligations to him, that I might run the paper when he could not."
"But the understanding between you was, if I remember, that it was only a formality to evade the action of the General Court. He did not mean that you should take advantage of it and refuse to serve him."
"That is true; but I say the circumstances justify me in using it as if he really meant to give me my freedom. He has another indenture which I signed, designed to be kept private, but he won't dare to bring that out to the light of day, because it may get him into further trouble with the General Court."
"You have the advantage of him there, I see, if you see fit to avail yourself of it. Does James know how you feel about it?"
"He ought to know, for I have told him that I should leave him if he continued to treat me as he has done. Probably he does not believe that I shall quit, but I am not responsible for that. He ought to see that such treatment would cause any apprentice to leave his master."