“That is Mr. Tyler now,” he murmured. “I’ll take in your card right away.”
Peter watched him as he hurried down the center of the long room and disappeared into a little glass cage in the corner.
It was an oblong room in which reigned the din of typewriters. Over against the farther wall a dozen or more men were bending so intently over heavy, leather-bound ledgers that it seemed as if they must have sat in that exact spot from the beginning of the world, adding, adding, adding! Vacantly the lad’s eye wandered along to the space just opposite him where, framed in neat oak, hung a printed notice headed: “Labor Laws of the State of Massachusetts.” For the want of a better amusement Peter sauntered over and began to read. The length of the working day, he gathered, was ten hours except for boys under sixteen, whom the law forbade working longer than eight hours. A smile passed over the lad’s face. Eight hours was surely long enough—from eight until twelve, and from one until five. What if he had been sixteen instead of fifteen, and been forced to get to the tannery at seven o’clock in the morning and work until six at night! There must be boys who did. For the first time in his life Peter was thankful that he was no older.
Just at this moment he saw the bookkeeper returning.
“If you please, Strong,” said the older man with a deference that contrasted markedly with his former greeting, “will you step this way? Mr. Tyler is expecting you.”
Peter followed through the central aisle of the long room and entered the small, glass-enclosed space where a man surrounded by a chaos of papers and letters was sitting at a roll-top desk.
“This, Mr. Tyler, is young Strong,” announced the bookkeeper to the superintendent.
“I am glad to see you, Strong.”
So sharply did his eye sweep over Peter that the boy trembled lest this oracle suddenly announce:
“I know all about you. Your name is not Strong at all. You are Peter Coddington, and you have been sent to the mill because you flunked your examinations.”