“Oh,” came the cheerful answer, “I’m all right.  I haven’t anything to hurt.  My wounded members are gone—­just plain gone.  But that chap has got something—­he got the real thing!”

What was the real thing according to such a boy’s idea?

Bok had had enough of war in all its aspects; he felt a sigh of relief when, a few days thereafter, he boarded The Empress of Asia for home, after a ten-weeks’ absence.  He hoped never again to see, at first hand, what war meant!

CHAPTER XX

THE THIRD PERIOD

On the voyage home, Edward Bok decided that, now the war was over, he would ask his company to release him from the editorship of The Ladies’ Home Journal.  His original plan had been to retire at the end of a quarter of a century of editorship, when in his fiftieth year.  He was, therefore, six years behind his schedule.  In October, 1919, he would reach his thirtieth anniversary as editor, and he fixed upon this as an appropriate time for the relinquishment of his duties.

He felt he had carried out the conditions under which the editorship of the magazine had been transferred to him by Mrs. Curtis, that he had brought them to fruition, and that any further carrying on of the periodical by him would be of a supplementary character.  He had, too, realized his hope of helping to create a national institution of service to the American woman, and he felt that his part in the work was done.

He considered carefully where he would leave an institution which the public had so thoroughly associated with his personality, and he felt that at no point in its history could he so safely transfer it to other hands.  The position of the magazine in the public estimation was unquestioned; it had never been so strong.  Its circulation not only had outstripped that of any other monthly periodical, but it was still growing so rapidly that it was only a question of a few months when it would reach the almost incredible mark of two million copies per month.  With its advertising patronage exceeding that of any other monthly, the periodical had become, probably, the most valuable and profitable piece of magazine property in the world.

The time might never come again when all conditions would be equally favorable to a change of editorship.  The position of the magazine was so thoroughly assured that its progress could hardly be affected by the retirement of one editor, and the accession of another.  There was a competent editorial staff, the members of which had been with the periodical from ten to thirty years each.  This staff had been a very large factor in the success of the magazine.  While Bok had furnished the initiative and supplied the directing power, a large part of the editorial success of the magazine was due to the staff.  It could carry on the magazine without his guidance.