Part 2 can be [read here](https://steemit.com/gandhi/@thegandhiguy/gandhi-in-south-africa-part-2).

Mohandas Gandhi stared at the walls of his room. The owner of Johnston's Family Hotel had agreed to let the 23-year-old barrister stay overnight, but the American had made it clear that the Indian man was to not been seen. Gandhi waited patiently for a waiter to bring him his dinner; one of the conditions was that he eat in his room, so his presence would not offend the other guests. 
 
Considering the welcome he'd generally received since arriving in South Africa a week and a half earlier, this wasn't too bad. On his journey to Pretoria, he'd been assaulted, insulted, and threatened by whites offended for no reason other than the color of his skin. He'd even spent a night shivering in a railway station, considering his options, before deciding to stay in the country and fight racial prejudice. On this Sunday night, at least, he was indoors and about to have a hot meal. 
 
The knock on the door finally came. Opening it, Gandhi was surprised to find the owner himself standing there, bearing an apology instead of dinner. “I was ashamed of having asked you to have your dinner here,” he said. He'd checked with the other guests, and they had no objection to his joining them. “Please, therefore, come to the dining room.” Gandhi accepted the invitation gratefully. Things were looking up. 
 
The next morning, Monday, June 5, 1893, Gandhi set off to find Albert Weir [A.W.] Baker, the local attorney handling the long and complicated case for which he had been brought from India. Their mutual client, Dada Abdulla, was a wealthy Muslim trader in Durban who was suing a former business partner based in Pretoria. Gandhi and Abdulla were from the same home town back in India, and their shared native tongue would improve communication with the legal team. 

At A.W. Baker's law office, Gandhi introduced himself to the local man, and was pleased to discover that, unlike many other whites in Durban, he was “free from colour prejudice.” An enthusiastic Christian, Baker set his sights on converting Gandhi to what he considered the only true religion. He grilled Gandhi on his beliefs. “I am a Hindu by birth,” Gandhi responded, “I intend to make a careful study of my own religion and... of other religions as well.” 

Baker was pleased by the candor and religious tolerance of the young man. Thirteen years older, the second generation South African would become something of a minor mentor to Gandhi. Not just a lawyer, Baker was also a magazine publisher and a driven lay preacher who gave sermons at a church that he has built. His messages of Christianity among the Africans earned him converts, although Gandhi would never be counted among those ranks. He did absorb many of Baker's other disciplines. In the coming years, Gandhi would use his own profits from his law office to start the first of several newspapers designed to uplift, encourage, and inspire his countrymen, Indian Opinion. 

For now, Baker told Gandhi, there wouldn't be much legal work for him. A higher priority was finding more permanent lodgings that would be cheaper than the Johnston Family Hotel. Dada Abdulla had cautioned Gandhi against boarding with any local Indians; they would certainly have some ties with the defendant in the lawsuit. “A fearful amount of colour prejudice” made it difficult to find a white family, but Baker knew “a poor woman,” a baker's wife, who might rent him a room, and they set off to meet her. After private consultation with Baker, she agreed to accept Gandhi as a boarder. 

According to biographer Ramchandra Guha in Gandhi before India, Baker 'vigorously promoted temperance.” This makes it somewhat surprising that when Gandhi spoke about the household in 1927, he revealed that alcohol had had its grip on domestic life there. Gandhi describes the husband as a “drunkard” who ruled over his wife as 'lord and master', yet was subservient in turn to his drinking addiction. She struggled to make ends meet while he spent his paycheck on booze, and was 'always in dread' of his nightly return. In describing the anguish of the baker's wife, Gandhi doesn't relate if physical abuse occurred in the household. It certainly seems possible that it did, and that he was aware of it. 

Gandhi's year in Pretoria was a formative one that advanced his beliefs in tolerance for other religions, as well as temperance.

Sources:
Gandhi: The Man, his People, and the Empire (Rajmohan Gandhi, 2006)
Gandhi before India (Ramchandra Guha, 2014)
An Autobiography: The story of my Experiments With Truth (M.K. Gandhi, 1927)
Part of this essay was recycled from "A.W. Baker and a baker's wife," posted April 2nd on 30dayGandhichallenge.com and mirrored on Reddit.