It was some time before our hero acquired dexterity in his new trade: his companions formed, with amazing celerity, whole sentences, while he was searching for letters, which perpetually dropped from his awkward hands: but he was ashamed of his former versatility, and he resolved to be steady to his present way of life. His situation, at this printer's, was far better suited to him than that which he had quitted, with so much disgust, at the brewer's. He rose early, and, by great industry, overcame all the difficulties which at first so much alarmed him. He soon became the most useful journeyman in the office. His diligence and good behaviour recommended him to his master's employers. Whenever any work was brought, Forester was sent for. This occasioned him to be much in the shop, where he heard the conversation of many ingenious men who frequented it; and he spent his evenings in reading. His understanding had been of late uncultivated; but the fresh seeds that were now profusely scattered upon the vigorous soil took root, and flourished. Forester was just at that time of life when opinions are valued for being _new_: he heard varieties of the most contradictory assertions in morals, in science, in politics. It is a great advantage to a young man to hear opposite arguments, to hear all that can be said upon every subject. Forester no longer obstinately adhered to the set of notions which he had acquired from his education; he heard many, whom he could not think his inferiors in abilities, debating questions which he formerly imagined scarcely admitted of philosophic doubt. His mind became more humble; but his confidence in his own powers, after having compared himself with numbers, if less arrogant, was more secure and rational: he no longer considered a man as a fool the moment he differed with him in opinion; but he was still a little inclined to estimate the abilities of authors by the party to which they belonged. This failing was increased, rather than diminished, by the company which he now kept. Amongst the young students who frequented Mr.----'s, the bookseller, was Mr. Thomas ----, who, from his habit of _blurting_ out strange opinions in conversation, acquired the name of Tom Random. His head was confused between politics and poetry; his arguments were paradoxical, his diction florid, and his gesture something between the spouting action of a player, and the threatening action of a pugilist. Forester was caught by the oratory of this genius from the first day he heard him speak. Tom Random asserted, that "this great globe, and all that it inhabits," must inevitably be doomed to destruction, unless certain ideas of his own, in the government of the world, were immediately adopted by universal acclamation.