distance, "and have made all the arrangements for your
future career."

Eagerly Peter looked up.

"I'm going back on the team?" he cried joyously.

"You are going to work!" was the sharp retort.

"What!"

"I have been very busy during the last two hours," continued Mr.
Coddington. "I have got for you the first, last, and only job I shall
ever get. It is up to you now."

"But I don't understand," protested Peter, aghast.

"Why not? It is not a difficult thing to comprehend. You have fooled
away your days and my money long enough. Life is a serious business--not
a game. It is time you took it in earnest. To-morrow morning at eight
o'clock you are going to work, and you must make good at the position
I've found for you, or you will lose your place. If you do I shall not
lift a finger to help you to find another."

A great lump rose in Peter's throat but he managed to choke it back.

"Where am I going?" he gasped when he was able to speak.

"To the tannery," was the laconic reply.

If the clouds had fallen or the earth opened Peter could not have been
more astounded.

The tannery!

Of course he knew his father owned the vast tanneries to the west of the
town, for that was the reason the Coddingtons lived at Milburn instead
of migrating to the near-by city, as had so many of their prosperous
neighbors; but beyond the fact that it was the tanneries which
indirectly provided him with tennis racquets, skates, bicycles,
motor-cars, and spending money Peter knew nothing about them. They were
red brick buildings covering a wide area, and from their doors at noon
and night hundreds of workmen with lunch-boxes and newspaper bundles
poured out into the streets. Peter never spoke of the tanneries. Even
when, on the highway, he encountered the heavy carts laden with hides
and marked "H. M. Coddington, Leather," he always looked the other way
and hurried past as fast as he could. Occasionally in hot weather when
the wind was in a certain quarter and brought a faint odor from the
beamhouses into the fashionable part of the town where Peter lived
their neighbors complained, and the boy always felt with a vague sense
of mortification that everybody blamed him and his family for the
annoyance. Sometimes this breath of damp, steamy leather even forced
itself in at the windows of the Coddington library and mingled
shamelessly with the rich hangings and paintings that furnished it.
Peter always resented the intrusion. How dar