He was lucky, and an old friend and fellow-workman, a leading editor, has revealed the secret of his luck.  He and the elder Harper learned their trade together, many years ago, in John Street, New York.  They began life with no fortune but willing hands and active brains;—­fortune enough for any young man in this free country.

[Illustration:  “Let’s break the back of another token.”]

“Sometimes after we had done a good day’s work, James Harper would say, ’Thurlow, let’s break the back of another token (a quarter of a ream of paper),—­just break its back.’  I would generally reluctantly consent just to break the back of the token; but James would beguile me, or laugh at my complaints, and never let me off until the token was completed, fair and square!

“It was our custom in summer to do a fair half-day’s work before the other boys and men got their breakfast.  We would meet by appointment in the gray of the morning, and go down to John Street.  We got the key of the office by tapping on the window, and Mr. Seymour would take it from under his pillow, and hand it to one of us through the blind.

“It kept us out of mischief, and put money into our pockets.”

The key handed through the window tells the secret of the luck that enabled these two men to rise to eminence, while so many boys that lay soundly sleeping in those busy morning hours are unknown.

No wonder that James Harper became mayor of the city, and head of one of the largest publishing houses in the world.  When his great printing house burned down, the giant perseverance which he had learned in those hours of overwork, made him able to raise, from the ashes, a larger and finer one.

Instead of watching till his employer’s back was turned, and saying, “Come, boys, let’s go home; we’ve done enough for one day,” and sauntering off with a cigar in his mouth, his cry was, “Let’s do a little overwork.”

That overwork which frightens boys nowadays out of good places, and sends them out West, on shipboard, anywhere, eating husks, in search of a spot where money can be had without work, laid the foundation of the apprentice boy’s future greatness.

Such busy boys were only too glad to go to bed and sleep soundly.  They had no time nor spare strength for dissipation, and idle thoughts, and vulgar conversation.

Almost the last words that James Harper uttered were appropriate to the end of such a life, and ought to be engraven upon the mind of every boy who expects to make anything of himself:  “It is not best to be studying how little we can work, but how much.”

[Illustration:  It is not best to study how little we can work, but how much.]

Boys, make up your minds to one thing,—­the future great men of this country are doing just what those boys did.  If you are dodging work, angry at your employer or teacher for trying to make you faithful; if you are getting up late, cross, and sleepy, after a night of pleasure-seeking, longing for the time when you can exchange honest work for speculation, you will be a victim to your own folly.