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[63] two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

Every sentence ends with a snap. Probably Franklin eating his rolls in the street is the best-known figure in American history, after Washington and his little hatchet; and the fact is due not to any extraordinary character in the situation, but to the literary skill with which he brings it before us.

Note the felicity with which he defends in the autobiography that failure to acquire orderly habits with which John Adams reproached him:--

I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like the man who in buying an axe of a smith, my neighbor, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him, if he would turn the wheel; he turned, while the smith pressed the broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on; and at length would take his axe as it was, without further grinding. “No,” said the smith, “ turn on, turn on, we shall have it bright by and by; as yet it is only speckled.” “Yes,” said the man, “but I think I like a speckled axe best.” And I believe this

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