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 competition 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.
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