If he wants to spin his top when he has done work, his father quotes, "Procrastination is the thief of time." If he does a virtuous action, he never gets anything for it, because "Virtue is its own reward." And that boy is hounded to death and robbed of his natural rest, because Franklin, said once, in one of his inspired flights of malignity: Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.

The sorrow that that maxim has cost me, through my parents, experimenting on me with it, tongue cannot tell.

The legitimate result is my present state of general debility, indigence, and mental aberration.
My parents used to have me up before nine o'clock in the morning sometimes when I was a boy.

If they had let me take my natural rest where would I have been now?
Keeping store, no doubt, and respected by all.
And what an adroit old adventurer the subject of this memoir was! In order to get a chance to fly his kite on Sunday he used to hang a key on the string and let on to be fishing for lightning.

And a guileless public would go home chirping about the "wisdom" and the "genius" of the hoary Sabbath-breaker.