“And what business is that?” asked the financier.

“The publishing of books,” replied the boy.

“You are making a great mistake,” answered the little man, fixing his keen gray eyes on the boy.  “Books are a luxury.  The public spends its largest money on necessities:  on what it can’t do without.  It must telegraph; it need not read.  It can read in libraries.  A promising boy such as you are, with his life before him, should choose the right sort of business, not the wrong one.”

But, as facts proved, the “little wizard of Wall Street” was wrong in his prediction; Edward Bok was not choosing the wrong business.

Years afterward when Edward was cruising up the Hudson with a yachting party one Saturday afternoon, the sight of Jay Gould’s mansion, upon approaching Irvington, awakened the desire of the women on board to see his wonderful orchid collection.  Edward explained his previous association with the financier and offered to recall himself to him, if the party wished to take the chance of recognition.  A note was written to Mr. Gould, and sent ashore, and the answer came back that they were welcome to visit the orchid houses.  Jay Gould, in person, received the party, and, placing it under the personal conduct of his gardener, turned to Edward and, indicating a bench, said: 

“Come and sit down here with me.”

“Well,” said the financier, who was in his domestic mood, quite different from his Wall Street aspect, “I see in the papers that you seem to be making your way in the publishing business.”

Edward expressed surprise that the Wall Street magnate had followed his work.

“I have because I always felt you had it in you to make a successful man.  But not in that business,” he added quickly.  “You were born for the Street.  You would have made a great success there, and that is what I had in mind for you.  In the publishing business you will go just so far; in the Street you could have gone as far as you liked.  There is room there; there is none in the publishing business.  It’s not too late now, for that matter,” continued the “little wizard,” fastening his steel eyes on the young man beside him!

And Edward Bok has often speculated whither Jay Gould might have led him.  To many a young man, a suggestion from such a source would have seemed the one to heed and follow.  But Edward Bok’s instinct never failed him.  He felt that his path lay far apart from that of Jay Gould—­and the farther the better!

In 1882 Edward, with a feeling of distinct relief, left the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company and associated himself with the publishing business in which he had correctly divined that his future lay.

His chief regret on leaving his position was in severing the close relations, almost as of father and son, between Mr. Cary and himself.  When Edward was left alone, with the passing away of his father, Clarence Cary had put his sheltering arm around the lonely boy, and with the tremendous encouragement of the phrase that the boy never forgot, “I think you have it in you, Edward, to make a successful man,” he took him under his wing.  It was a turning-point in Edward Bok’s life, as he felt at the time and as he saw more clearly afterward.