The third thing that happened that day turned out to be a very fortunate one for me. A man named William Quarles happened to observe my misfortune at the market. When he came over to console me I recognized that he was a Quaker by the way he talked. The way he referred to me as "thee" reminded me of my Quaker schoolteacher, Peter Heinrich.

He seemed to enjoy talking to me and invited me to his home to meet a friend who was visiting him from England. His friend was a very learned man named Joseph Levi. We hit it off from the very beginning. We talked about a variety of topics. When he brought up calculus, he was surprised to find out that I had mastered it on my own.

I was equally surprised when he took out his pocked watch to check the time. I had never seen one before.