"Would you, indeed!" grinned he. "Well, if you succeeded you would be the first. But I'm not discouraging you, sonny. Sure if none of us were young and hopeful nothing great would be done in the world. You sound as if you might be Peter Strong--the lad they talk so much of in the other factories."

"I am Peter Strong."

"I might have guessed it! Carmachel said I'd know you because you had the strength of a tiger cub, the smile of the sun across the lake of Killarney, and the courage of a fighting c.o.c.k. It's good to see you, laddie, starting out to move the world. I was going to do it once myself, but somehow I never did. It does no harm, though, to set out thinking you're going to budge the universe. Now listen to me. There is no kindly feeling toward you two boys in this place. Tolman is scared that you'll get his job away from him, so he's sore on your being sent here; the men are afraid of him so they side with him. Let me give you a bit of advice: work the best you can and have little to say to those around you. If you want to find out things keep your questions until you see me outside and I'll tell you all you want to know. I have been here twenty years, and what I can't answer I can ask. We'll beat Tolman yet, the three of us!"

And so to the kindly old McCarthy Peter and Nat entrusted their fortunes.

"I do believe we are going to like it at this factory, after all,"

announced Peter to Nat. "Certainly we shall not want for excitement.

There is the chance to invent a better patent leather varnish which will dry indoors; there is the chance to learn the mystery of making patent leather despite Tolman; and there is the daily liability of having to tear out into the yard and rescue the stock from a sudden shower. It is going to be great sport, Nat!"

But Nat was not so sanguine.

Being a toggle-boy was far from easy work.

"And what is a toggle-boy?" inquired Mrs. Jackson at the end of their first day.

Peter and Nat only laughed.

They enjoyed using big words that mystified her.

"Why, you see, Mother, toggle-boys are what we are at present," said Nat, teasingly.

"But what does one have to do to be a toggle-boy?" persisted she.

"I am afraid a toggle-boy is not as grand a person as he sounds, Mrs.

Jackson," interrupted Peter. "Nat and I are down at the lowest rung of the ladder again. We couldn't get much lower unless they set us to making the wooden frames the leather is stretched on before it is j.a.panned. Somebody has to do that. The frames are about three yards long and two yards wide, roughly speaking; it isn't much work to make them, though, because the light thin boards come cut just the right size and simply have to be nailed together at the corners. Still I should not want to be set to doing carpentry. Even a toggle-boy's work is better than that--eh, Nat?"

"He is at least an inch nearer making leather," admitted Nat grudgingly.

"Of course he is! You see, Mrs. Jackson, Nat isn't stuck on his present job. I shouldn't be either if I expected to do it for life. It is not a position that inspires you with the feeling that you are well on your way toward being a captain of industry," Peter chuckled. "No, I'm afraid there is more than one step between being a toggle-boy and being president of the company."

Nat smiled in spite of himself.

"Now, Mrs. Jackson, to make our career a little clearer to you I'll tell you more about the toggle-boys," Peter continued. "When the dyed leather is sent over from the other factories to be made into patent leather it is first stretched on the wooden frames, as I told you, so that the gloss can be put on. The reason why they stretch the leather on frames instead of boards is because a frame, being open, allows the wet j.a.pan to run off the edges of the material and drip through to the floor as it could not do if it were stretched to a solid surface. They have found that for many reasons it is much better not to nail the leather to the frames. Nails make holes in the stock and waste it; besides the tacks might catch in the brushes as the men work and cause the dressing to spatter. Then, too, the leather is irregular in shape and some of it does not reach to the edges of the frame anyway. So steel nippers, or toggles, are snapped at intervals around the edge of the material and by means of strings knotted to the nippers the leather can be pulled out tightly and tied to the frame. Do you understand?"

Mrs. Jackson nodded.

"And you boys are the ones who put on the toggles?"

"Well, no, we're not," replied Peter, a little apologetically. "But we shall be some day. Just now we are employed in taking from the toggles that have already been used the strings that have been cut or knotted, and subst.i.tuting instead new, long strings so that the nippers will be ready for the men."

"It isn't much of a job, Mother," put in Nat, ruefully.

"I admitted it was not next to the presidency," declared Peter, laughing. "But just keep in mind that we are not going to do it always."

And Peter's prediction was true, for in a few days notice came that the boys were to be promoted to a more difficult task.

Strangely enough, and fortunately too for the beginners, it was their cheery old friend McCarthy who gave them their first lesson in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off the stock to fit the frames; attaching the toggles, or nippers; and tying the leather so that every part of it could be drawn out taut.

"The finishers, or slickers as we call them, cannot put any gloss on unless the leather is perfectly tight," insisted McCarthy.

Peter tugged at his twine.

"What kind of stock do they use for patent leather?" he puffed. "Let me see! This must be----"

"Colt. Colt, calf, or kid is used. Colt, as you already know from your experience in the tanneries, is either the skin of a young horse or the split skin of a full-grown one. It works up into a light weight, fine grade patent leather. Calfskins you know all about too; they run light in weight anyway and, you remember, only need to be trimmed down to uniform thickness before tanning and dyeing. Patent calf is a heavy, air-tight leather which has been known to crack," whispered McCarthy with a wink, "but if it doesn't it wears well. Our best patent leather, though, is made from kid----"

"Which in reality is goat," interrupted Peter.

"True enough. So it is. Well, patent kid, as we call it, is not only light weight and elastic, but it is also porous. In fact, it is the only patent leather made that is not air-tight. It is the air-tightness of patent leather, you know, which makes it so hot to wear."

"Why, I always thought the trouble was with my feet!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Peter.

McCarthy shook his head.

"Well, I never!" said Peter. "So it is the fault of the leather itself."

"I'm afraid it is, young one."

"Well, that settles it! I never shall buy another pair of patent leather shoes as long----"

"Go easy," retorted McCarthy dryly. "I guess you are safe, though, to make that vow. Your toggle-boy wages won't furnish you with endless numbers of patent leathers, I reckon. But cheer up! You won't be needing pumps here at the works, for while the richest of us always wear Tuxedos every day we excuse the small salary people from appearing in full dress."

Peter answered the jest with one of his well-known chuckles.

He was in high spirits, for although there was, as he himself was forced to own, many a step between him and the presidency of the Coddington Company he felt he had at least made one loyal friend in the patent leather factory--McCarthy from the County of Cork!

When Sat.u.r.day night came, however, and Peter received his pay envelope he peered anxiously inside it; then he drew a sigh of satisfaction.

"It is a lucky thing," he remarked to himself, "that Peter Strong is not on real toggle-boy wages. If he was he never would be able to pay the president another cent toward Nat's motorcycle!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XI

TOLMAN EXPERIENCES A SHOCK

During the next few months Peter and Nat talked little and learned much.

An occasional question was all they dared to ask, and that only when the men with whom they were a.s.sociated seemed amiably disposed. Far from pushing their way to the front they took orders obediently from their superiors, slighting no task to which they were a.s.signed, no matter how trivial it appeared. In consequence sentiment throughout the factory slowly turned in their favor. The chill silence of the workmen melted to gradual friendliness. Two such modest boys as these could not be coming to usurp anybody's position. No, indeed! First one and then another of the employees advanced bits of information which were accepted so gratefully that it became a pleasure to follow them with more. Before two months had pa.s.sed the general opinion prevailed that Tolman had been grossly unjust to the newcomers, and with the reaction a strong desire arose among the men to atone for any previous unfairness.

This change in the atmosphere caused the good spirits which Peter and Nat had found it difficult to sustain through the ordeal of censure and misrepresentation to well up in a great happiness. Their daily work became a joy instead of a matter for dread. Making patent leather certainly was absorbingly interesting.

They had now reached the department where the varnish was put on the leather, and although not skilful enough to share in the actual doing the boys gained much knowledge simply by watching the process and asking questions. They learned that it was necessary to apply three coats of varnish to the material, and when the slickers put them on it was a fascinating operation. Sometimes the men used a rotary sweep of the arm, swirling the varnish round and round over the surface of the leather; sometimes they took quick backward and forward strokes. Usually four men worked together enameling a single skin. Amateurs would have spread the j.a.pan too thickly in some spots, too thinly in others; but not so these veterans at their trade. Deftly the blue-black liquid--so elastic and so oily--was coated over the leather, and the glistening finish put out in the sun to dry. After the second coat had hardened it was rubbed down with pumice that the surface might be perfectly smooth before the final layer of j.a.pan was applied. The last coat was then put on evenly with the spreaders of thin wood, and before the material was put out for its last sunning it was baked in an oven heated to a temperature of about a hundred and sixty degrees.