[Illustration: FRANKLIN LEARNING TO STOOP.]

[Footnote 13: The name of this book, written by the Rev. Cotton Mather,
was _Essays to do Good_.]


115. Franklin returns to Philadelphia; he goes to London; water
against beer.--Franklin soon went back to Philadelphia. The governor
of Pennsylvania then persuaded him to go to London, telling him that
he would help him to get a printing-press and type to start a
newspaper in Philadelphia.

When Franklin reached London, he found that the governor was one of
those men who promise great things, but do nothing. Instead of buying
a press, he had to go to work in a printing-office to earn his bread.
He stayed in London more than a year. At the office where he worked
the men were great beer-drinkers. One of his companions bought six
pints a day. He began with a pint before breakfast, then took another
pint at breakfast, then a pint between breakfast and dinner, then
a pint at dinner, then a pint in the afternoon, and, last of all,
a pint after he had done work. Franklin drank nothing but water. The
others laughed at him, and nicknamed him the "Water-American"; but
after a while they had to confess that he was stronger than they were
who drank so much strong beer.

The fact was that Franklin could beat them both at work and at play.
When they went out for a bath in the Thames,[14] they found that their
"Water-American" could swim like a fish; and he so astonished them
that a rich Londoner tried to persuade him to start a swimming-school