Sometimes they met in the evening at a saloon in the neighborhood of the shop where Allen, the son of Edward Thatcher, whom everybody knew, was an object of special interest.
He would sit on a table and lecture the saloon loungers in German, and at the end of a long debate made a point of paying the score.

He was most temperate himself, sipping a glass of wine or beer in the deliberate German fashion.
Allen was a friendly soul and every one liked him.

It was impossible not to like a lad whose ways were so gentle, whose smile was so appealing.
He liked dancing and went to most of the parties--our capital has not outgrown its homely provincial habit of calling all social entertainments "parties." He was unfailingly courteous, with a manner toward women slightly elaborate and reminiscent of other times.

There was no question of his social acceptance; mothers of daughters, who declined to speak to his father, welcomed him to their houses.
Allen introduced Dan to the households he particularly fancied and they made calls together on Dan's free evenings or on Sunday afternoons.
Snobbishness was a late arrival among us; any young man that any one vouched for might know the "nicest" girls.

Harwood's social circle was widening; Fitch and his wife said a good word for him in influential quarters, and the local Yale men had not neglected him.