window and stared out at the street. It grew late and the rain was gathering volume as though preparing for a night of it. A truck heavily loaded with boxes and crates of furniture moved slowly through Franklin Street toward the railway. Amzi was at once alert. He read much current history in the labels on passing freight, and often formed the basis for credits therefrom. Was it possible that one of the bank's customers was feloniously smuggling merchandise out of town to avoid writs of attachment? Such evils had been known. Phil jumped from the table and joined him at the window. She knew her Uncle Amzi's mental processes much better than he imagined; suspicion was writ large on his countenance. "Humph!" she said. "That's only the stuff from the Samuel Holton house. Charlie and Ethel are moving to Indianapolis. That's some of the furniture they had in their town house here. I saw the crates in the yard this morning." "I believe you're right, Phil; I believe you're right." His eyes opened and shut several times quickly, as he assimilated this information. Then he recurred to Phil's affairs. "Speaking of money, Phil, we'll have to do something about those unpaid bills. In a town like this everybody knows everybody's business--except yours and mine. We can't have your father's bills piling up; they've got to be paid. And this brings me to something I've meant to speak to you about for some time. In fact, I've just been waiting for a chance, but you're so confoundedly hard to catch. There's--a--some money--er--that is to say, Phil, as executor of your grandfather's estate, I hold some money, that--er--" He coughed furiously, blew his nose, and made a fresh start. "I'm going to open an account for you--your own money, understand!--and you can pay those bills yourself. We'll start with, say, five hundred dollars and you can depend on a hundred a month. It will be strictly--er--your money. Understand? You needn't say anything to your father about it. That's all of that." He feigned sudden interest in the wet street, but Phil, whose eyes had not left him, tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Oh, no, you don't! You haven't a cent that belongs to me, and you know it, you splendid old fraud. And don't you try that game on me again or I'll stop speaking to you." "Do you mean--" he began to bluster; "do you mean to say that I don't know my own business? Do you think I'm going to steal money from your grandfather's estate to give you? Why--" "You weren't born to adorn the front row of successful liars, Amy. And even if you had a million or two lying round loose, you couldn't give me a cent of it; I wouldn't take it. It wouldn't be square to daddy; daddy's a gentleman, you know, and I couldn't do anything meaner than to take your money to pay his debts with. So there, you old dear, I've a good notion to muss you up, after all."