It was a folio, pro patria size, in pica, with long primer notes.
I compos'd of it a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press;
it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had
finished my distribution for the next day's work, for the little
jobbs sent in by our other friends now and then put us back.
But so determin'd I was to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio,
that one night, when, having impos'd my forms, I thought my day's
work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages
reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and compos'd it over again
before I went to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbors,
began to give us character and credit; particularly, I was told,
that mention being made of the new printing-office at the merchants'
Every-night club, the general opinion was that it must fail,
there being already two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford;
but Dr. Baird (whom you and I saw many years after at his native place,
St. Andrew's in Scotland) gave a contrary opinion: "For the industry
of that Franklin," says he, "is superior to any thing I ever saw
of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club,
and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed."
This struck the rest, and we soon after had offers from one of them
to supply us with stationery; but as yet we did not chuse to engage in
shop business.
I mention this industry the more particularly and the more freely,
tho' it seems to be talking in my own praise, that those of
my posterity, who shall read it, may know the use of that virtue,
when they see its effects in my favour throughout this relation.
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