“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 cock. 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.