Edward immediately met the
challenge; he squeezed half a dozen lemons into each pail of water,
added some sugar, tripled his charge, and continued his monopoly by
selling "Lemonade, three cents a glass." Soon more passengers were
asking for lemonade than for plain drinking-water!
One evening Edward went to a party of young people, and his latent
journalistic sense whispered to him that his young hostess might like to
see her social affair in print. He went home, wrote up the party, being
careful to include the name of every boy and girl present, and next
morning took the account to the city editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, with
the sage observation that every name mentioned in that paragraph
represented a buyer of the paper, who would like to see his or her name
in print, and that if the editor had enough of these reports he might
very advantageously strengthen the circulation of The Eagle. The editor
was not slow to see the point, and offered Edward three dollars a column
for such reports. On his way home, Edward calculated how many parties he
would have to attend a week to furnish a column, and decided that he
would organize a corps of private reporters himself. Forthwith, he saw
every girl and boy he knew, got each to promise to write for him an
account of each party he or she attended or gave, and laid great stress
on a full recital of names. Within a few weeks, Edward was turning in to
The Eagle from two to three columns a week; his pay was raised to four
dollars a column; the editor was pleased in having started a department
that no other paper carried, and the "among those present" at the
parties all bought the paper and were immensely gratified to see their
names.
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