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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 40
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week on their account. This, and my being esteem'd a pretty good riggite, that
is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the society. My
constant attendance (I never making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master;
and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon all work of
dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I went on now very agreeably.
My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in Duke-street,
opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was two pair of stairs backwards, at an
Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she had a daughter, and a maid
servant, and a journeyman who attended the warehouse, but lodg'd abroad. After
sending to inquire my character at the house where I last lodg'd she agreed to
take me in at the same rate, 3s. 6d. per week; cheaper, as she said, from the
protection she expected in having a man lodge in the house. She was a widow, an
elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was
converted to the Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much
revered; had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand
anecdotes of them as far back as the times of Charles the Second. She was lame
in her knees with the gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so
sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure
to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half
an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of
ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping
good hours, and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part
with me; so that, when I talk'd of a lodging I had heard of,nearer my business,
for two shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on saving money, made some
difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me two shillings a
week for the future; so I remained with her at one shilling and sixpence as long
as I staid in London.
In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the most
retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account: that she was a Roman
Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodg'd in a nunnery with an
intent of becoming a nun; but, the country not agreeing with her, she returned
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