he assisted Mr. Doubleday in preparing and
placing the advertisements of the books of the house.

Mr. Doubleday was just reviving the publication of a house-organ called
The Book Buyer, and, given a chance to help in this, Bok felt he was
getting back into the periodical field, especially since, under Mr.
Doubleday's guidance, the little monthly soon developed into a literary
magazine of very respectable size and generally bookish contents.

The house also issued another periodical, The Presbyterian Review, a
quarterly under the editorship of a board of professors connected with
the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries. This ponderous-looking
magazine was not composed of what one might call "light reading," and as
the price of a single copy was eighty cents, and the advertisements it
could reasonably expect were necessarily limited in number, the
periodical was rather difficult to move. Thus the whole situation at the
Scribners' was adapted to give Edward an all-round training in the
publishing business. It was an exceptional opportunity.

He worked early and late. An increase in his salary soon told him that
he was satisfying his employers, and then, when the new Scribner's
Magazine appeared, and a little later Mr. Doubleday was delegated to
take charge of the business end of it, Bok himself was placed in charge
of the advertising department, with the publishing details of the two
periodicals on his hands.

He suddenly found himself directing a stenographer instead of being a
stenographer himself. Evidently his apprentice days were over. He had,
in addition, the charge of sending all the editorial copies of the new
books to the press for review, and of keeping a record of those reviews.
This naturally brought to his desk the authors of the house who wished
to see how the press received their works.

The study of the writers who were interested in following the press
notices of their books, and those who were indifferent to them became a
fascinating game to young Bok. He soon discovered that the greater the
author the less he seemed to care about his books once they were
published. Bok noticed this, particularly, in the case of Robert Louis
Stevenson, whose work had attracted him, but, although he used the most
subtle means to inveigle the author into the office to read the press
notices, he never succeeded. Stevenson never seemed to have the
slightest interest in what the press said of his books.

One day M