I've been kind of hurt once in a while, though I didn't let it out.
But now we're on the subject I will say: if you've got faith in the
old man, hands off the Hands!"
"That settles it, Father," returned Peter heavily. "I never meant to
hinder, only to help if I could. From now on the watchword is, 'hands
off the Hands!'"
This was a promise, and he kept it scrupulously. But the steady fire
in his heart was scattered as a flaming log is broken into many embers
by the clumsy stab of a poker. He had no longer a settled aim in life.
He saw no niche which he could fill, and felt that the world had no
particular use for the second Peter Rolls. The one thing he had
longed for as a boy, which did not now in his young manhood appear
stale and unprofitable, was a journey round the world and a glimpse of
the East. When his father said uneasily: "Why don't you travel, my
boy?" Peter answered that perhaps it would be a good thing.
The subject was broached to mother, and mother did not object. She had
learned long ago, when she was first married to Peter, never to object
to anything that he proposed. When she smiled and agreed with every
suggestion she was a dear little woman, and so she had spent her
existence in being a dear little woman until her hair turned white.
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