Beecher's face
was tense. After a few moments he said: "That's generally the way with
extemporaneous remarks: they are always dangerous. The best impromptu
speeches and remarks are the carefully prepared kind," he added.

Edward told him he regretted the reference because he knew that General
Hayes would read it in the New York papers, and he would be nonplussed
to understand it, considering the cordial relations which existed
between the two men. Mr. Beecher knew of Edward's relations with the
ex-President, and they had often talked of him together.

Nothing more was said of the incident. When the Beecher home was
reached Mr. Beecher said: "Just come in a minute." He went straight to
his desk, and wrote and wrote. It seemed as if he would never stop.
At last he handed Edward an eight-page letter, closely written,
addressed to General Hayes.

"Read that, and mail it, please, on your way home. Then it'll get
there just as quickly as the New York papers will."

It was a superbly fine letter,--one of those letters which only Henry
Ward Beecher could write in his tenderest moods. And the reply which
came from Fremont, Ohio, was no less fine!

CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST "WOMAN'S PAGE," "LITERARY LEAVES," AND ENTERING SCRIBNER'S

Edward had been in the employ of Henry Holt and Company as clerk and
stenographer for two years when Mr. Cary sent for him and told him that
there was an opening in the publishing house of Charles Scribner's
Sons, if he wanted to make a change. Edward saw at once the larger
opportunities possible in a house of the importance of the Scribners,
and he immediately placed himself in communication with Mr. Charles
Scribner, with the result that in January, 1884, he entered the employ
of these publishers as stenographer to the two members of the firm and
to Mr. Edward L. Burlingame, literary adviser to the house. He was to
receive a salary of eighteen dollars and thirty-three cents per week,
which was then considered a fair wage for stenographic work. The
typewriter had at that time not come into use, and all letters were
written in long-hand. Once more his legible handwriting had secured
for him a position.

Edward Bok was now twenty-one years of age. He had already done a
prodigious amount of work for his years. He was always busy. Every
spare moment of his evenings was devoted either to writing his literary
letter, to the steady acquirement of autograph letters in which he
stil