"Why, what have you got to say about the Hands?" Defiance underlay
tone and look.
"It was in this very room I promised you I'd keep my hands off the
Hands," Peter quoted. "But I want you to let me take the promise
back."
"I'll do nothing of the sort!" shrilled Peter senior. "What do you
mean?"
"I need to work. I've tried other things, but my thoughts always come
back to the Hands. I'm proud of your success you know. I want to--to
batten on it. And I want to carry it on. I have ideas of my own."
"I bet you have, and damned poor ideas, too," snapped the old man.
"I'm not going to have them tried in my place while I'm alive."
"Let me tell you what some of them are, won't you, before you condemn
them?" his son pleaded, refusing to be ruffled.
"No. I won't have my time wasted on any such childishness," growled
Peter senior. "You ought to know better than to trouble me with every
silly, trifling idea you get into your head."
"To me this is not trifling," Peter argued. "It's so serious that if
you refuse to take me into your business--I don't care how humble a
position you start me--I shall begin to make my own way in the world.
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