."

"I wish you would," cried Peter.

Accordingly all went up-stairs and their guide cautiously pushed open a
door on which NO ADMITTANCE was scrawled in large letters. The moment
Peter squeezed through it he drew in his breath and then regretted that
he had done so, for he at once began to cough.

The boys glanced about the room before them.

Every window was closed, making the air hot and stuffy; yet, Peter asked
himself, how was such a condition to be avoided in a place where it was
evident that even the tiniest draught must create instant havoc? This
room which Peter and Nat surveyed was thick with flying white particles
that were being whirled into space from rapidly turning emery wheels.
The workmen who were busy buffing the flesh side of split skins in order
to get the rough surface required for a suede finish seemed enveloped in
a miniature blizzard. As the swiftly turning discs sent clouds of white
dust into the air it settled on the hair, faces, eyelashes, and clothing
until the laborers looked like snow men moving amid the blinding flakes
of an old-fashioned storm. Peter and Nat, who looked on, began to be
changed into snow men, too.

"I guess you don't want to stay in here long," announced their guide,
raising his voice to be heard above the noise of the revolving wheels.
"As you see, they are making 'suede,' or ooze finished leather. Some
calfskins are finished this way too, as of course you know. A certain
amount of this leather will be left white for gloves or shoes; more of
it, however, will be stretched on boards and brushed over with some
colored dye. Suede is made in all sorts of fancy shades for women's
party slippers."

Peter nodded and then, quite without warning, he sneezed.

Immediately a cloud of whiteness shot into the air.

"Hurry! Let's get out!" cried Nat. "I'm going to sneeze, too."

The man who was conducting them opened the door a crack and they all
three slipped through. Safe in the outer room they stopped and
laughingly surveyed one another. All were as white as if sprinkled with
powder.

"Goodness!" Peter exclaimed, rubbing his eyelashes. "How can those men
breathe? I should think that in a day they would swallow enough dust to
fill their lungs up solid."

"They don't mind it."

"Well, I only hope we shan't be put in there to work."

"So do I!" was Nat's fervent rejoinder.

Fortunately for the boys they escaped doing duty in the buffing-room.
Instead they worked throu