"
"Capital!" exclaimed one; "I never thought of that. The measure is a
practical one, and I move that we reduce it to practice at once."
"I support it with all my heart, not only as practical, but
ingenious," added another. "It is honorable to meet the tyranny of the
Council with an innocent subterfuge like that."
All agreed to the plan, and adopted it enthusiastically.
"Benjamin Franklin, Editor of the _Courant_," exclaimed a member of
the club, rising from his seat and patting Benjamin on the shoulder.
"Don't that sound well, my boy? Rather a young fellow to have in
charge such an enterprise, but a match, I guess, for the General Court
of the Province."
"The youngest editor, proprietor, and publisher of a paper in the
whole land, no doubt," suggested another. "But it is as true here as
it is in other things, 'Old men for counsel, young men for war.' We
are at war now, and we do not want an editor who will cry peace, when
there is no peace."
"A free man, too," suggested another facetiously, "an apprentice no
longer, to be knocked about and treated as an underling. At the top,
with the laurels of manhood on the brow of sixteen!"
Benjamin had not spoken, but he had listened. Affairs had taken an
unexpected turn. In the morning he had no idea of becoming
editor-in-chief of the paper that made more stir in Boston than the
other two combined.
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