with him to the office, and he presented me to Mr.
Watson as the most wonderful genius and scholar ever known. His
recommendation had little sway with Mr. Watson, who only smiled at
Linton's extravagances, as one does at the prattle of an infant. I
sauntered about the printing office for the space of two or three
hours, during which time Watson bustled about with green spectacles on
his nose, and took no heed of me. But, seeing that I still lingered, he
addressed me at length, in a civil gentlemanly way, and inquired
concerning my views. I satisfied him with all my answers, in particular
those to his questions about the Latin and Greek languages; but when he
came to ask testimonials of my character and acquirements, and found
that I could produce none, he viewed me with a jealous eye, and said he
dreaded I was some n'er-do-weel, run from my parents or guardians, and
he did not choose to employ any such. I said my parents were both dead;
and that, being thereby deprived of the means of following out my
education, it behoved me to apply to some business in which my
education might be of some use to me. He said he would take me into the
office, and pay me according to the business I performed and the manner
in which I deported myself; but he could take no man into Her Majesty's
printing office upon a regular engagement who could not produce the
most respectable references with regard to morals.

I could not but despise the man in my heart who laid such a stress upon
morals, leaving grace out of the question; and viewed it as a
deplorable instance of human depravity and self-conceit; but, for all
that, I was obliged to accept of his terms, for I had an inward thirst
and longing to distinguish myself in the great cause of religion, and I
thought, if once I could print my own works, how I would astonish
mankind, and confound their self-wisdom and their esteemed
morality--blow up the idea of any dependence on good works, and
morality, forsooth! And I weened that I might thus get me a name even
higher than if I had been made a general of the Czar Peter's troops
against the infidels.

I attended the office some hours every day, but got not much
encouragement, though I was eager to learn everything, and could soon
have set types considerably well. It was here that I first conceived
the idea of writing this journal, and having it printed, and applied to
Mr. Watson to print it for me, telling him it was a religious parable
such a