The material that the editor was publishing and the authors that he was laying under contribution began to have marked effect upon the circulation of the magazine, and it was not long before the original figures were doubled, an edition—­enormous for that day—­of seven hundred and fifty thousand copies was printed and sold each month, the magical figure of a million was in sight, and the periodical was rapidly taking its place as one of the largest successes of the day.

Mr. Curtis’s single proprietorship of the magazine had been changed into a corporation called The Curtis Publishing Company, with a capital of five hundred thousand dollars, with Mr. Curtis as president, and Bok as vice-president.

The magazine had by no means an easy road to travel financially.  The doubling of the subscription price to one dollar per year had materially checked the income for the time being; the huge advertising bills, sometimes exceeding three hundred thousand dollars a year, were difficult to pay; large credit had to be obtained, and the banks were carrying a considerable quantity of Mr. Curtis’s notes.  But Mr. Curtis never wavered in his faith in his proposition and his editor.  In the first he invested all he had and could borrow, and to the latter he gave his undivided support.  The two men worked together rather as father and son—­as, curiously enough, they were to be later—­than as employer and employee.  To Bok, the daily experience of seeing Mr. Curtis finance his proposition in sums that made the publishing world of that day gasp with sceptical astonishment was a wonderful opportunity, of which the editor took full advantage so as to learn the intricacies of a world which up to that time he had known only in a limited way.

What attracted Bok immensely to Mr. Curtis’s methods was their perfect simplicity and directness.  He believed absolutely in the final outcome of his proposition:  where others saw mist and failure ahead, he saw clear weather and the port of success.  Never did he waver:  never did he deflect from his course.  He knew no path save the direct one that led straight to success, and, through his eyes, he made Bok see it with equal clarity until Bok wondered why others could not see it.  But they could not.  Cyrus Curtis would never be able, they said, to come out from under the load he had piled up.  Where they differed from Mr. Curtis was in their lack of vision:  they could not see what he saw!

It has been said that Mr. Curtis banished patent-medicine advertisements from his magazine only when he could afford to do so.  That is not true, as a simple incident will show.  In the early days, he and Bok were opening the mail one Friday full of anxiety because the pay-roll was due that evening, and there was not enough money in the bank to meet it.  From one of the letters dropped a certified check for five figures for a contract equal to five pages in the magazine.  It was a welcome sight, for it meant an easy meeting of the pay-roll for that week and two succeeding weeks.  But the check was from a manufacturing patent-medicine company.  Without a moment’s hesitation, Mr. Curtis slipped it back into the envelope, saying:  “Of course, that we can’t take.”  He returned the check, never gave the matter a second thought, and went out and borrowed more money to meet his pay-roll.