om Field: "City of New Orleans purposing
give me largest public reception on sixth ever given an author. Event of
unusual quality. Mayor and city officials peculiarly desirous of having
you introduce me to vast audience they propose to have. Hate to ask you
to travel so far, but would be great favor to me. Wire answer." Bok
wired back his willingness to travel to New Orleans and oblige his
friend. It occurred to Bok, however, to write to a friend in New Orleans
and ask the particulars. Of course, there was never any thought of Field
going to New Orleans or of any reception. Bok waited for further
advices, and a long letter followed from Field giving him a glowing
picture of the reception planned. Bok sent a message to his New Orleans
friend to be telegraphed from New Orleans on the sixth: "Find whole
thing to be a fake. Nice job to put over on me. Bok." Field was
overjoyed at the apparent success of his joke and gleefully told his
Chicago friends all about it--until he found out that the joke had been
on him. "Durned dirty, I call it," he wrote Bok.

It was a lively friendship that Eugene Field gave to Edward Bok, full of
anxieties and of continuous forebodings, but it was worth all that it
cost in mental perturbation. No rarer friend ever lived: in his serious
moments he gave one a quality of unforgetable friendship that remains a
precious memory. But his desire for practical jokes was uncontrollable:
it meant being constantly on one's guard, and even then the pranks could
not always be thwarted!

XVIII. Building Up a Magazine

The newspaper paragraphers were now having a delightful time with Edward
Bok and his woman's magazine, and he was having a delightful time with
them. The editor's publicity sense made him realize how valuable for his
purposes was all this free advertising. The paragraphers believed, in
their hearts, that they were annoying the young editor; they tried to
draw his fire through their articles. But he kept quiet, put his tongue
in his cheek, and determined to give them some choice morsels for their
wit.

He conceived the idea of making familiar to the public the women who
were back of the successful men of the day. He felt sure that his
readers wanted to know about these women. But to attract his newspaper
friends he labelled the series, "Unknown Wives of Well-Known Men" and
"Clever Daughters of Clever Men."

The alliterative titles at once attracted the paragraphers; they fell
upon t