The Americanization of Edward Bok Part 14

"_Et tu, Brute?_" Stockton smilingly replied. "Well, I'll tell you. I asked the butler to bring me another spoon, and then, with a spoon in each hand, I attacked both the lady and the tiger at the same time."

Once, when Stockton was going to Boston by the night boat, every room was taken. The ticket agent recognized the author, and promised to get him a desirable room if the author would tell which he had had in mind, the lady or the tiger.

"Produce the room," answered Stockton.

The man did. Stockton paid for it, and then said: "To tell you the truth, my friend, I don't know."

And that was the truth, as Mr. Stockton confessed to his friends. The idea of the story had fascinated him; when he began it he purposed to give it a definite ending. But when he reached the end he didn't know himself which to produce out of the open door, the lady or the tiger, "and so," he used to explain, "I made up my mind to leave it hanging in the air."

To the present generation of readers, all this reference to Stockton's story may sound strange, but for months it was the most talked-of story of the time, and sold into large numbers.

One day while Mr. Stockton was in Bok's office, A. B. Frost, the ill.u.s.trator, came in. Frost had become a full-fledged farmer with one hundred and twenty acres of Jersey land, and Stockton had a large farm in the South which was a financial burden to him.

"Well, Stockton," said Frost, "I have found a way at last to make a farm stop eating up money. Perhaps it will help you."

Stockton was busy writing, but at this bit of hopeful news he looked up, his eyes kindled, he dropped his pen, and eagerly said:

"Tell me."

And looking behind him to see that the way was clear, Frost answered:

"Pave it solid, old man."

When the stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Little Lord Fauntleroy were made into plays, Bok was given an opportunity for an entirely different kind of publicity. Both plays were highly successful; they ran for weeks in succession, and each evening Bok had circulars of the books in every seat of the theatre; he had a table filled with the books in the foyer of each theatre; and he bombarded the newspapers with stories of Mr. Mansfield's method of making the quick change from one character to the other in the dual role of the Stevenson play, and with anecdotes about the boy Tommy Russell in Mrs. Burnett's play. The sale of the books went merrily on, and kept pace with the success of the plays. And it all sharpened the initiative of the young advertiser and developed his sense for publicity.

One day while waiting in the anteroom of a publis.h.i.+ng house to see a member of the firm, he picked up a book and began to read it. Since he had to wait for nearly an hour, he had read a large part of the volume when he was at last admitted to the private office. When his business was finished, Bok asked the publisher why this book was not selling.

"I don't know," replied the publisher. "We had great hopes for it, but somehow or other the public has not responded to it."

"Are you sure you are telling the public about it in the right way?"

ventured Bok.

The Scribner advertising had by this time attracted the attention of the publis.h.i.+ng world, and this publisher was entirely ready to listen to a suggestion from his youthful caller.

"I wish we published it," said Bok. "I think I could make it a go. It's all in the book."

"How would you advertise it?" asked the publisher.

Bok promised the publisher he would let him know. He carried with him a copy of the book, wrote some advertis.e.m.e.nts for it, prepared an attractive "broadside" of extracts, to which the book easily lent itself, wrote some literary notes about it, and sent the whole collection to the publisher. Every particle of "copy" which Bok had prepared was used, the book began to sell, and within three months it was the most discussed book of the day.

The book was Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward".

XI. The Chances for Success

Edward Bok does not now remember whether the mental picture had been given him, or whether he had conjured it up for himself; but he certainly was possessed of the idea, as are so many young men entering business, that the path which led to success was very difficult: that it was overfilled with a jostling, bustling, panting crowd, each eager to reach the goal; and all ready to dispute every step that a young man should take; and that favoritism only could bring one to the top.

After Bok had been in the world of affairs, he wondered where were these choked avenues, these struggling ma.s.ses, these compet.i.tors for every inch of vantage. Then he gradually discovered that they did not exist.

In the first place, he found every avenue leading to success wide open and certainly not over-peopled. He was surprised how few there were who really stood in a young man's way. He found that favoritism was not the factor that he had been led to suppose. He realized it existed in a few isolated cases, but to these every one had pointed and about these every one had talked until, in the public mind, they had multiplied in number and a.s.sumed a proportion that the facts did not bear out.

Here and there a relative "played a favorite," but even with the push and influence behind him "the lucky one," as he was termed, did not seem to make progress, unless he had merit. It was not long before Bok discovered that the possession of sheer merit was the only real factor that actually counted in any of the places where he had been employed or in others which he had watched; that business was so constructed and conducted that nothing else, in the face of compet.i.tion, could act as current coin. And the amazing part of it all to Bok was how little merit there was. Nothing astonished him more than the low average ability of those with whom he worked or came into contact.

He looked at the top, and instead of finding it overcrowded, he was surprised at the few who had reached there; the top fairly begged for more to climb its heights.

For every young man, earnest, eager to serve, willing to do more than he was paid for, he found ten trying to solve the problem of how little they could actually do for the pay received.

It interested Bok to listen to the talk of his fellow-workers during luncheon hours and at all other times outside of office hours. When the talk did turn on the business with which they were concerned, it consisted almost entirely of wages, and he soon found that, with scarcely an exception, every young man was terribly underpaid, and that his employer absolutely failed to appreciate his work. It was interesting, later, when Bok happened to get the angle of the employer, to discover that, invariably, these same lamenting young men were those who, from the employer's point of view, were either greatly overpaid or so entirely worthless as to be marked for early decapitation.

Bok felt that this constant thought of the wages earned or deserved was putting the cart before the horse; he had schooled himself into the belief that if he did his work well, and accomplished more than was expected of him, the question of wages would take care of itself. But, according to the talk on every side, it was he who had the cart before the horse. Bok had not only tried always to fill the particular job set for him but had made it a rule at the same time to study the position just ahead, to see what it was like, what it demanded, and then, as the opportunity presented itself, do a part of that job in addition to his own. As a stenographer, he tried always to clear off the day's work before he closed his desk. This was not always possible, but he kept it before him as a rule to be followed rather than violated.

One morning Bok's employer happened to come to the office earlier than usual, to find the letters he had dictated late in the afternoon before lying on his desk ready to be signed.

"These are the letters I gave you late yesterday afternoon, are they not?" asked the employer.

"Yes, sir."

"Must have started early this morning, didn't you?"

"No, sir," answered Bok. "I wrote them out last evening before I left."

"Like to get your notes written out before they get stale?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good idea," said the employer.

"Yes, sir," answered Bok, "and I think it is even a better idea to get a day's work off before I take my ap.r.o.n off."

"Well said," answered the employer, and the following payday Bok found an increase in his weekly envelope.

It is only fair, however, to add here, parenthetically, that it is neither just nor considerate to a conscientious stenographer for an employer to delay his dictation until the end of the day's work, when, merely by judicious management of his affairs and time, he can give his dictation directly after opening his morning mail. There are two sides to every question; but sometimes the side of the stenographer is not kept in mind by the employer.

Bok found it a uniform rule among his fellow-workers to do exactly the opposite to his own idea; there was an astonis.h.i.+ng unanimity in working by the clock; where the hour of closing was five o'clock the preparations began five minutes before, with the hat and overcoat over the back of the chair ready for the stroke of the hour. This concert of action was curiously universal, no "overtime" was ever to be thought of, and, as occasionally happened when the work did go over the hour, it was not, to use the mildest term, done with care, neatness, or accuracy; it was, to use a current phrase, "slammed off." Every moment beyond five o'clock in which the worker was asked to do anything was by just so much an imposition on the part of the employer, and so far as it could be safely shown, this impression was gotten over to him.

There was an entire unwillingness to let business interfere with any antic.i.p.ated pleasure or personal engagement. The office was all right between nine and five; one had to be there to earn a living; but after five, it was not to be thought of for one moment. The elevators which ran on the stroke of five were never large enough to hold the throng which besieged them.

The talk during lunch hour rarely, if ever, turned toward business, except as said before, when it dealt with underpaid services. In the spring and summer it was invariably of baseball, and scores of young men knew the batting averages of the different players and the standing of the clubs with far greater accuracy than they knew the standing or the discounts of the customers of their employers. In the winter the talk was all of dancing, boxing, or plays.

It soon became evident to Bok why scarcely five out of every hundred of the young men whom he knew made any business progress. They were not interested; it was a case of a day's work and a day's pay; it was not a question of how much one could do but how little one could get away with. The thought of how well one might do a given thing never seemed to occur to the average mind.

"Oh, what do you care?" was the favorite expression. "The boss won't notice it if you break your back over his work; you won't get any more pay."

And there the subject was dismissed, and thoroughly dismissed, too.

Eventually, then, Bok learned that the path that led to success was wide open: the compet.i.tion was negligible. There was no jostling. In fact, travel on it was just a trifle lonely. One's fellow-travellers were excellent company, but they were few! It was one of Edward Bok's greatest surprises, but it was also one of his greatest stimulants. To go where others could not go, or were loath to go, where at least they were not, had a tang that savored of the freshest kind of adventure. And the way was so simple, so much simpler, in fact, than its avoidance, which called for so much argument, explanation, and discussion. One had merely to do all that one could do, a little more than one was asked or expected to do, and immediately one's head rose above the crowd and one was in an employer's eye--where it is always so satisfying for an employee to be! And as so few heads lifted themselves above the many, there was never any danger that they would not be seen.