man of whom they were spoken.

The young man was sixteen when his father drove him from their country
home to the city, and apprenticed him to a firm of printers.

As an apprentice he and another young man were frequently partners in
working an old-fashioned hand press. "One applied the ink with
hand-balls, and the other laid on sheets and did the pulling. They
changed work at regular intervals, one inking and the other pulling."
The biographer who gives this description of the work of the two, adds
that his hero was accustomed to remain at his press after the other men
had quit work whenever he could secure a partner to assist him.

The young man's fellow worker was often persuaded to assist him in these
extra efforts--usually much against his will. While he often felt like
rebelling because of his partner's ambition to do his utmost for his
employers, he could not restrain his admiration for the man's industry.

Once the unwilling partner said: "Often, after a good day's work, he
would say to me, 'Let's break the back of another token (two hundred and
fifty impressions)--just break its back.' I would often consent
reluctantly but he would beguile me, or laugh at my complaints, and
never let me off till the token was completed, fair and square. It was a
custom for us in the summer to do a clear half-day's work before the
other boys and men got their breakfast. We would meet by appointment in
the grey of the early morning and go down to the printing-room."

Fellow workmen made sport of the ambitious young man, not only because
of what they felt was his excessive industry, but because of his
homespun clothes and heavy cow-hide boots. He seldom retorted, but once,
when jests had gone further than usual, he said to a tormentor: "When I
am out of my time and set up for myself, and you need employment, as you
probably will, come to me and I will give you work." The man little
thought the prophecy would be fulfilled, but forty years after, when the
industrious apprentice was mayor of the city and one of the world's
leading publishers, he was reminded of the promise made to the
tormentor, and the promised position was given to him. The workman who
believed in doing more than was expected of him had won his way to fame
and fortune, while his derider had made no progress.

In 1817 the industrious apprentice asked a brother--who in the meantime
had served his apprenticeship in a printing office--to go into business
with him