Such is a glimpse of Franklin at fifty-two, as preliminary to a single
episode which will occupy the rest of this chapter. But the episode
itself requires a special word.

V. For a quarter of a century Franklin had published an almanac under
the _pseudonym_ of Richard Saunders, into the pages of which he crowded
year by year choice scraps of wit and wisdom, which made the little
hand-book a welcome visitor in almost every home of the New World. Now
in the midst of those philosophical studies which so much delighted him,
when about to cross the Atlantic as a commissioner to the Home
Government, he found time to gather up the maxims and quaint sayings of
twenty-five years and set them in a wonderful mosaic, as the preface of
Poor Richard's world-famous almanac--as unique a piece of writing as any
language affords. Here it is:


POOR RICHARD'S ADDRESS.


Courteous Reader: I have heard that nothing gives an author so great
pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge,
then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to
relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where a great company of people
were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale
not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and
one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks,
"Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not those heavy
taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them?
What would you advise us to do?" Father Abraham stood up and replied,
"If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; 'for a word