"Why, he is one boy in a hundred, Mr. Coddington--a son to be proud of!"
burst out Tyler.

"Oh, Peter has possibilities," admitted the president with a smile.

But he would say nothing more. Instead he shut himself up in his office
where he went determinedly to work. But those who peeped through the
glass door could see that throughout the whole afternoon the smile that
had lighted his face still lingered there faintly.

He smiled as he rode home in his big limousine too, and he continued to
smile during dinner, but he said nothing.

Peter, who was watching him closely, thought every instant he would
either make some allusion to the events of the day or make some opening
so that he could do so.

Now that all was over the boy was not a little chagrined that in a
moment of anger he should have let his secret pass his lips. Henceforth
the game was spoiled. Probably his father thought he should not have
lost his temper and blurted out the truth. It was a foolish thing to do
and now that he thought it over coolly Peter regretted that he had done
it. He longed to talk with his father, but he did not just know how to
begin.

He was finally spared the embarrassment of confession or explanation,
for as the president pushed back his chair from the table he remarked
casually:

"So your secret is out, son."

"Yes, sir. I didn't mean to tell, but I got so angry at Tolman, Father."

"Well, perhaps it is just as well to travel under your own name from now
on. It's a rather good name. And by the by, Peter, here is a receipt for
the money Strong owes me on that motorcycle. We'll cancel that debt. The
company was saved several times the amount by getting that lot of patent
leather in out of the rain to-day."

"But I can't take money for that, Father," stammered Peter.

"Strong can. That will close my dealings with him. To me it is worth a
far bigger sum than that to get my own boy back again."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII

MR. CODDINGTON TELLS A STORY

One of the first things Peter did the next afternoon was to go with his
father and mother to Mrs. Jackson's and relate to her himself all the
happenings of the previous day. The story was, to be sure, no surprise
to her, for had not Nat rushed home and incoherently rattled it off? But
how much nicer it was to hear it from Peter! The boy spared no detail of
the truth; he told of his school, his failures there, of his disgust at
being put into the tanneries, of