"Yes, you can. I said put down that engine. Nobody's going to take it away from you. Not just now, anyway. It's not yours but I suppose you've won it. Come here, I want to see your hand."
Very reluctantly Pat placed the engine on the sofa and advanced slowly.
"It's all red," he said.
Peter took off the handkerchief. "Nonsense," he said, "you haven't more than scratched it."
He was about to dismiss the matter from his mind and start for the office when he noticed something he'd overlooked. "Kate, Kate," cried Peter in great excitement, "this hand that Pat cut hitting that boy is his left hand."
"Yes, 'tis his left hand he'd be using all the time when I'm not noticing him," said Kate, returning with the iodine. "That's where the strength is. It'll be hard to teach him out of it."
"I don't want him taught out of it, Kate. Don't you ever try to stop him. It's bad to try to change children around. Anyway I don't want him changed. This is fine for him. When he grows up and plays baseball he'll be two steps nearer first base and besides the swing will throw him into his stride. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about, Kate, but remember I want him to stay a left-hander."
Peter went down to the office and wrote, "There seems to be no shadow of doubt from which hope can spring—I am the father of a southpaw." He nursed the theme and the incident along for almost a column, and there were other by-products of comfort. In the City Room Peter ran into Deane Taylor, the venerable music critic of the Bulletin.
"Mr. Taylor," he asked, "did you ever see a left-handed violin player?"