said a lawyer to the proud mother, "I'd have spoken for a couple of
hours." Mrs. Stirling herself wished it had been longer. Four columns of
evidence, and only a little over a half column of speech! It couldn't
have taken him twenty minutes at the most. "Even the other lawyer, who
had nothing to say but lies, took over a column to his speech. And his
was printed close together, while that of Peter's was spread out (_e.g._
solid and leaded) making the difference in length all the greater." Mrs.
Stirling wondered if there could be a conspiracy against her Peter, on
the part of the Metropolitan press. She had promptly subscribed for a
year to the New York paper which glorified Peter the most, supposing
that from this time on his name would appear on the front page. When she
found it did not and that it was not mentioned in the press and Health
Board crusade against the other "swill-milk" dealers, she became
convinced that there was some definite attempt to rob Peter of his due
fame. "Why, Peter began it all," she explained, "and now the papers and
Health Board pretend it's all their doings." She wrote a letter to the
editor of the paper--a letter which was passed round the office, and
laughed over not a little by the staff. She never received an answer,
nor did the paper give Peter the more attention because of it.

Two days after the trial, Peter had another call from Dummer.

"You handled that case in great style, Mr. Stirling," he told Peter.
"You know the ropes as well as far older men. You got just the right
evidence out of your witnesses, and not a bit of superfluous rubbish.
That's the mistake most young men make. They bury their testimony in
unessential details, I tell you, those two children were worth all the
rest put together. Did you send them to the country on purpose to get
that kind of evidence?"