He was easier to deal with, and after a chat with Peter, he told Mrs.Stirling: "I think he is doing no harm, and may do much good.

Let him do what he thinks best." "It's dreadful though, to have your son's first refusal be about going to saloons," sighed the mother.
"From the way he spoke I think his refusal was as hard to him as to you.
He's a good boy, and you had better let him judge of what's right." On Peter's return to the city, he found an invitation from Mrs.Bohlmann to come to a holiday festivity of which the Germans are so fond.

He was too late to go, but he called promptly, to explain why he had not responded.

He was very much surprised, on getting out his dress-suit, now donned for the first time in three years, to find how badly it fitted him.
"Mother is right," he had to acknowledge.

"I have grown much thinner." However, the ill-fit did not spoil his evening.