The stationer opened it; but read scarcely three lines before he exclaimed, to Benjamin's consternation:
"Oh, this is from Riddlesden! I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him," and he handed the letter back to Benjamin without reading all of it, turned upon his heel and went back to his work.
Benjamin's feelings can be imagined better than described. He was well-nigh dumbfounded to learn that the letter was not from Governor Keith. And then it was that the first flash of suspicion that he had been deceived entered his mind. He was still more surprised to learn, on examination, that not one of the letters he had taken from the bag was written by Governor Keith. There he was without one letter of introduction to any person in London, the scheme of establishing a printing house in Philadelphia discovered to be a myth, a mere boy, friendless and without work, in a great city, three thousand miles from home. If another American youth was ever lured into a baser trap, by a baser official, his name has never been recorded. Benjamin was at his wits' end—he knew not what to do. His feelings bordered upon despair. Had he not been a wonderful youth to rise superior to difficulties, he must have yielded to overwhelming discouragement.
To add to his troubles, when he disclosed his situation to Ralph, he learned that his old companion had abandoned his wife and child, never intending to return to America.
"You are a hard-hearted wretch; I never would have thought such a thing of you, Ralph," he exclaimed. "Such meanness ought to be left to baser men than you are."
"I suppose that you would never look with any favor upon such a plan as mine, and so I did not tell you," replied Ralph.
"It is lucky for you that you did not; for I never would have consented to be the companion of a young man running away from his wife and child."
"Well, I have never been treated well by one member of my wife's family from the day I was married, and before, too. I have borne it without complaining to any one, until I could bear it no longer. Now let them reflect."
"But that is no excuse for a man to abandon his family, no excuse whatever. Why, Ralph, I am almost as much deceived in you as I have been in Governor Keith. I did not think that you were capable of such meanness." Benjamin meant every word he uttered; and he was not disposed to spare his old friend at all. Another bit of information just here magnified his sorrows.
"I am out of funds entirely, Ben, so that I have begun to be cursed already, you see, without yours." Ralph spoke as if the remarks of Ben cut him to the quick.