ry! To Peter the danger was not a very real one, but Nat, who
was in ignorance of the true facts, was pale with fright.

"Whew, Peter! That was a close call," he stammered. "A narrow squeak!
But for Mr. Coddington we should both have been fired. I don't know what
I should have done if I had lost my place. It was mighty good of him to
give us another chance, wasn't it?"

"Mr. Coddington is all right, you can bet your life on that!" agreed
Peter heartily. "It was lucky, though, that he was here."

Still aglow with excitement, the boys flew down over the stairs and took
up their work, making no further allusion to the incident.

But that night when Peter got home his father called him into the
library and motioning to a chair before the open fire, observed dryly:

"Your friend Strong had a narrow escape to-day, Peter."

"Yes, sir. But for you he would have lost his job."

"I'm afraid so," the president nodded. "Since noon I have been thinking
the matter over. What Strong said brought things before me in an
entirely new light. I don't think I ever realized before some of the
conditions at the tanneries."

Peter waited.

"If it were possible--mind, I do not say it could be done--but if a
scheme could be worked out to make a big sort of rest room where the men
could go at noon do you think that would obviate the difficulties of my
employees? Would it prevent them from converting packing-cases into
lunch rooms?"

"You mean a big room with tables and chairs where the men could go and
eat their lunch, Father?"

"Something of the sort. Perhaps there could be magazines and books
there, too."

"Hurrah! It's a splendid plan. When will you do it, Father?" cried
Peter.

"I didn't say I was going to do it at all. I merely asked you to find
out your friend Strong's opinion. Do you know, some of Strong's ideas
are not so bad. Ask him if a room such as I describe would be as
satisfactory to him as the packing-box lunch room from which he and his
friend Jackson were to-day ejected."

"Of course Strong will like it!"

"I think I will give the orders, then. That vacant floor may as well be
used for this purpose as any other. We shall not want it at present, and
if we ever need more room we must devise some other way. I've a fancy,
somehow, to call the new venture the Strong Reading-Room."

Peter started to speak.

"Purely as a joke, you know," went on Mr. Coddington, waving his hand.
"Just as a reminder to Strong how ve