"He can whittle anything you ask!"

"He knows how to make things you want!"

"He can tie a knot sixteen different kinds!"

"He can fold a newspaper into soldiers' and firemen's caps!"

"He's friends with the policeman!"

Such laudations, and a hundred more, the children sang of him to their
elders.

"Oh," cried one little four-year-old girl, voicing the unanimous feeling
of the children, "Mister Peter is just shplendid."

So the elders nodded and smiled when they met him, and he was pretty
well known to several hundred people whom he knew not.

But another year passed, and still no client came.




CHAPTER XII.

HIS FIRST CLIENT.