ties he would have to attend a week to furnish a
column, and decided that he would organize a corps of private reporters
himself. Forthwith, he saw every girl and boy he knew, got each to
promise to write for him an account of each party he or she attended or
gave, and laid great stress on a full recital of names. Within a few
weeks, Edward was turning in to _The Eagle_ from two to three columns a
week; his pay was raised to four dollars a column; the editor was
pleased in having started a department that no other paper carried, and
the "among those present" at the parties all bought the paper and were
immensely gratified to see their names.

So everybody was happy, and Edward Bok, as a full-fledged reporter, had
begun his journalistic career.

It is curious how deeply embedded in his nature, even in his earliest
years, was the inclination toward the publishing business. The word
"curious" is used here because Edward is the first journalist in the
Bok family in all the centuries through which it extends in Dutch
history. On his father's side, there was a succession of jurists. On
the mother's side, not a journalist is visible.

Edward attended the Sunday-school of the Carroll Park Methodist
Episcopal Church, in Brooklyn, of which a Mr. Elkins was
superintendent. One day he learned that Mr. Elkins was associated with
the publishing house of Harper and Brothers. Edward had heard his
father speak of _Harper's Weekly_ and of the great part it had played
in the Civil War; his father also brought home an occasional copy of
_Harper's Weekly_ and of _Harper's Magazine_. He had seen _Harper's
Young People_; the name of Harper and Brothers was on some of his
school-books; and he pictured in his mind how wonderful it must be for
a man to be associated with publishers of periodicals that other people
read, and books that other folks studied. The Sunday-school
superintendent henceforth became a figure of importance in Edward's
eyes; many a morning the boy hastened from home long before the hour
for school, and seated himself on the steps of the Elkins house under
the pretext of waiting for Mr. Elkins's son to go to school, but really
for the secret purpose of seeing Mr. Elkins set forth to engage in the
momentous business of making books and periodicals. Edward would look
after the superintendent's form until it was lost to view; then, with a
sigh, he would go to school, forgetting all about the Elkins boy whom
he had t