Yeah, sure, he kept pretty busy, what with the printing, the writing, the science and the diplomacy. He discovered electricity, invented the lightning rod, created bifocals, established the nation's first public library and first fire department, and -- what's more -- could tell a rollickingly good dirty joke when the occasion warranted.

But what if he'd gotten more rest? What if, instead of getting up at the crack of dawn, he had just yawned, rolled over and snoozed 'til he damned well felt like getting up?

It's an odd thing to ruminate over, but when you learn that something you've believed all your life -- nay, something that you've built your entire life around -- isn't true at all, your mind tends to call it a holiday and go wandering off.

So it was recently when I read the results of a study showing that Franklin's early-to-bed, early-to-rise schtick was a lie.

That's right. Absolutely no truth whatsoever to the claim that "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

The way to achieve those goals, it turns out, may be to do what a succession of people -- my parents, my siblings, my roommates and my wife -- have been encouraging me not to do all my life. Namely, sleep 'til noon.

"We found no evidence that following Franklin's advice about going to bed and getting up early was associated with any health, socioeconomic or cognitive advantage," Dr. Catherine Gale and Dr. Christopher Martyn reported recently in The British Medical Journal.

On the contrary -- and let me repeat this loudly in case you early birds are trying to catch a nap to make up for the fact that you got up too blessed early, ON THE CONTRARY--the good doctors have determined that night owls are actually richer than early birds.

The two docs conducted a follow-up study with 1,229 men and women who had participated some 25 years ago in a survey that chronicled in great detail their sleep habits.

After tracing what had happened in the subjects' lives over the past few decades, Drs. Gale and Martyn reached some rather surprising conclusions. They discovered that the folks who slept late were economically better off than the folks who got up with the rooster.

Late sleepers had a larger mean income, greater access to cars, and more indoor toilets, three things that -- I think we can all agree -- are universally recognized as the trappings of wealth.

As for wisdom and health, the doctors found no evidence that late sleepers were more slow-witted or sickly than their get-up-and-go counterparts. There was, regrettably, a wee bit of bad news for people who slumber for long stretches of time. The study indicates that people who sleep more than eight hours a night tend to die sooner than those who get by on less.

All in all, though, I'd have to say this study is vindication for those of us who've endured the taunts of early risers. Perhaps now they will stop trying to wake us up at ungodly hours, forcing us to risk serious injury to ourselves by heaving pillows at them from a prone position.

"There is no justification for early risers to affect moral superiority," Drs. Gale and Martyn declare.

So wipe that smug look off your faces, early birds.

Worms, indeed.

Our incomes are meaner than yours, we have more toilets than you do (lots and lots of toilets), and -- what's more -- there's a car waiting outside for us at this very moment.

You early birds go on to bed. We're going out to celebrate, and we're taking dirty old Ben with us this time.