He did not whine and mope because his parents could no longer keep the retinue of servants to which they had been accustomed in the Netherlands.

He simply pitched in and helped.

The same spirit impelled him to clean the baker's windows for fifty cents a week, to deliver a newspaper over a regular route, to sell ice water on the Coney Island horse-cars--in short, to do any honorable work to overcome the burden of poverty.

Meanwhile he strove to acquire what little education he could, but he probably learned more from his association with the prominent persons whom he met as a result of his early passion for autograph collecting.

Such a boyhood brings home the important truth that necessity is the mother of self-reliance.
Mr.Bok's story indicates the road to success and gives encouragement to those who would tread that pleasant way, but it also sounds a frank warning against the pitfalls that beset ambitious youth.