while
there was a reasonable income for them, not wholly dependent on the
magazine, there was no room for a third.

Mr. Bush now suggested that he buy the magazine for his son, alter its
name, enlarge its scope, and make of it a national periodical.
Arrangements were concluded, those who had financially backed the
venture were fully paid, and the two boys received a satisfactory amount
for their work in building up the magazine. Mr. Bush asked Edward to
suggest a name for the new periodical, and in the following month of
May, 1887, The Brooklyn Magazine became The American Magazine, with its
publication office in New York. But, though a great deal of money was
spent on the new magazine, it did not succeed. Mr. Bush sold his
interest in the periodical, which, once more changing its name, became
The Cosmopolitan Magazine. Since then it has passed through the hands of
several owners, but the name has remained the same. Before Mr. Bush sold
The American Magazine he had urged Edward to come back to it as its
editor, with promise of financial support; but the young man felt
instinctively that his return would not be wise. The magazine had been
The Cosmopolitan only a short time when the new owners, Mr. Paul J.
Slicht and Mr. E. D. Walker, also solicited the previous editor to
accept reappointment. But Edward, feeling that his baby had been
rechristened too often for him to father it again, declined the
proposition. He had not heard the last of it, however, for, by a curious
coincidence, its subsequent owner, entirely ignorant of Edward's
previous association with the magazine, invited him to connect himself
with it. Thus three times could Edward Bok have returned to the magazine
for whose creation he was responsible.

Edward was now without editorial cares; but he had already, even before
disposing of the magazine, embarked on another line of endeavor. In
sending to a number of newspapers the advance sheets of a particularly
striking "feature" in one of his numbers of The Brooklyn Magazine, it
occurred to him that he was furnishing a good deal of valuable material
to these papers without cost. It is true his magazine was receiving the
advertising value of editorial comment; but the boy wondered whether the
newspapers would not be willing to pay for the privilege of simultaneous
publication. An inquiry or two proved that they would. Thus Edward
stumbled upon the "syndicate" plan of furnishing the same article to a
group of