By this time Edward Bok had become so intensely interested in the editorial problem, and his partner in the periodical publishing part, that they decided to sell out their theatre-programme interests and devote themselves to the magazine and its rapidly increasing circulation.  All of Edward’s editorial work had naturally to be done outside of his business hours, in other words, in the evenings and on Sundays; and the young editor found himself fully occupied.  He now revived the old idea of selecting a subject and having ten or twenty writers express their views on it.  It was the old symposium idea, but it had not been presented in American journalism for a number of years.  He conceived the topic “Should America Have a Westminster Abbey?” and induced some twenty of the foremost men and women of the day to discuss it.  When the discussion was presented in the magazine, the form being new and the theme novel, Edward was careful to send advance sheets to the newspapers, which treated it at length in reviews and editorials, with marked effect upon the circulation of the magazine.

All this time, while Edward Bok was an editor in his evenings he was, during the day, a stenographer and clerk of the Western Union Telegraph Company.  The two occupations were hardly compatible, but each meant a source of revenue to the boy, and he felt he must hold on to both.

After his father passed away, the position of the boy’s desk—­next to the empty desk of his father—­was a cause of constant depression to him.  This was understood by the attorney for the company, Mr. Clarence Cary, who sought the head of Edward’s department, with the result that Edward was transferred to Mr. Cary’s department as the attorney’s private stenographer.

Edward had been much attracted to Mr. Cary, and the attorney believed in the boy, and decided to show his interest by pushing him along.  He had heard of the dual role which Edward was playing; he bought a copy of the magazine, and was interested.  Edward now worked with new zest for his employer and friend; while in every free moment he read law, feeling that, as almost all his forbears had been lawyers, he might perhaps be destined for the bar.  This acquaintance with the fundamental basis of law, cursory as it was, became like a gospel to Edward Bok.  In later years, he was taught its value by repeated experience in his contact with corporate laws, contracts, property leases, and other matters; and he determined that, whatever the direction of activity taken by his sons, each should spend at least a year in the study of law.

The control of the Western Union Telegraph Company had now passed into the hands of Jay Gould and his companions, and in the many legal matters arising therefrom, Edward saw much, in his office, of “the little wizard of Wall Street.”  One day, the financier had to dictate a contract, and, coming into Mr. Cary’s office, decided to dictate it then and there.  An hour afterward Edward delivered