"Well, as a matter of fact, I don't honestly think it is."
"Peter, I understand better now what this is you feel, but it is not all the truth you say. When I go away he is red clay, that is what you say. It is not so simple. I have looked at him then and to me he was just what you have said. But it is more. Inside the clay all the time there is something. The little bug, I do not know what it is you call it."
"Do you mean germ?"
"Yes, I think so. That you cannot touch and I cannot. So we do not need to talk and to get angry. It is for him to say. Is it not so?"
"Well, within reason—yes."
"So! You go back to America and you make him the newspaper man. That is fair. When he is twenty-one you will come here. And he will come. You will say 'yes'."
"That's almost four years off."
"The day I know; it is the twentieth in August. The year it will be 1922."
Peter hesitated.
"But it is fair, Peter. You should like it. Do you not see it is what you call it 'sporting'."