Peter drew the Food-Commission report as well, although it went before the Commission as Green’s. To this, too, a proposed bill was attached, which had undergone the scrutiny of the Health Board, and had been conformed to their suggestions. In November Peter carried both reports to Albany, and had a long talk with Catlin over them. That official would have preferred no reports, but since they were made, there was nothing to do but to submit them to the Legislature. Peter did not get much encouragement from him about the chances for the bills. But Costell told him that they could be “whipped through. The only danger is of their being amended, so as to spoil them.” “Well,” said Peter, “I hope they will be passed. I’ve done my best, whatever happens.” A very satisfactory thing to be able to say of yourself, if you believe in your own truthfulness. CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE MEANTIME. In spite of nine months’ hard work on the two Commissions, it is not to be supposed that Peter’s time was thus entirely monopolized. If one spends but seven hours of the twenty-four in sleep, and but two more on meals, there is considerable remaining time, and even so slow a worker as Peter found spare hours not merely for society and saloons, but for what else he chose to undertake. Socially he had an evening with Miss De Voe, just before she left the city for the summer; a dinner with Mr. Pell, who seemed to have taken a liking to Peter; a call on Lispenard; another on Le Grand; and a family meal at the Rivingtons, where he was made much of in return for his aid to Ray. In the saloons he worked hard over the coming primary, and spent evenings as well on doorsteps in the district, talking over objects and candidates. In the same cause, he saw much of Costell, Green, Gallagher, Schlurger and many other party men of greater or less note in the city’s politics. He had become a recognized quantity in the control of the district, and the various ward factions tried hard to gain his support. When the primary met, the proceedings, if exciting, were never for a moment doubtful, for Gallagher, Peter, Moriarty and Blunkers had been able to agree on both programme and candidates. An attempt had been made to “turn down” Schlurger, but Peter had opposed it, and had carried his point, to the great gratitude of the silent, honest German. What was more important to him, this had all been done without exciting hard feelings. “Stirling’s a reasonable fellow,” Gallagher told Costell, not knowing how much Peter was seeing of the big leader, “and he isn’t dead set on carrying his own schemes. We’ve never had so little talk of mutiny and sulking as we have had this paring. Moriarty and Blunkers swear by him. It’s queer. They’ve always been on opposite sides till now.”