He's getting to be a power in the ward, and if you want to remain Mrs.
Justice Gallagher and spend eight thousand--and pickings--a year, you see that you keep him friendly." "Oh, I'll be friendly, but he's awful dull." "Oh, no, mamma," said Monica.

"He really isn't.

He's read a great many more French books than I have." Peter lunched with the wholesale provision-dealer as planned.

The lunch hour proving insufficient for the discussion, a family dinner, a few days later, served to continue it.

The dealer's family were not very enthusiastic about Peter.
"He knows nothing but grub talk," grumbled the heir apparent, who from the proud altitude of a broker's office, had come to scorn the family trade.
"He doesn't know any fashionable people," said one of the girls, who having unfulfilled ambitions concerning that class, was doubly interested and influenced by its standards and idols.
"He certainly is not brilliant," remarked the mother.
"Humph," growled the pater-familias, "that's the way all you women go on.