While Amzi was still trying to account for Nan's check, two other incidents contributed further to his perplexities. On his way home one evening he saw Nan and Kirkwood walking together. It was only a fair assumption that the two friends had met by chance and that Kirkwood was merely accompanying Nan to her door, as he had every right to do. They were walking slowly and talking earnestly. To avoid passing them, Amzi turned off at the first cross-street, but stood for a moment staring after them. Then the next evening he had gone to call at the Bartletts' and all his intervening speculations were overthrown when he found Kirkwood there alone with Rose, Nan being, it seemed, in Indianapolis on a visit. Rose and Kirkwood had evidently been deeply engrossed, too, when Amzi interrupted their conference with the usual thump of the drumstick. The piano, he observed, was closed, and it was inexplicable that Kirkwood should be spending an unmusical evening with Rose. Nor was Phil with her father. This was another damaging fact. It was a blow to Amzi to find that such things could happen in his own town, and under his very eyes. If it hadn't been for Phil's party, the preparations for which gave him plenty to do, Amzi's winter would have opened most unhappily; but Phil's party was an event of importance not only in her life, but in Amzi's as well. Everybody who had the slightest title to consideration received an invitation. He was glad his sisters had suggested that the Holtons be invited. It gave him an excuse for opening the doors wide. He heard much from his kinsfolk about the prosperity of the Holtons, who were held up to him in rebuke for his own sluggish business methods. He wanted his sisters and the rest of the world to know that the First National Bank of Montgomery aroused in him no jealous pangs. Phil arrived at Amzi's early and ran upstairs to take off her wraps. When this was accomplished and her Aunt Fanny's housemaid, lent for the occasion, had duly admired her, she knocked boldly on her uncle's door. "Come in, you Phil," he shouted. Amzi stood before his chiffonier in his shirt sleeves, trying to make a bow of his white tie. A cigar, gripped firmly in his teeth, was not proving of much assistance in the operation. As Phil crossed the room, he jerked off the strip of lawn and threw it into the open drawer. "See what you've done? See all that litter? All that stuff crumpled up and wasted just on your account? I told that fellow in Indianapolis to give me the ready-made kind that buckles behind, but he wouldn't listen; said they don't keep 'em any more. And look at that! It's a good thing I got a dozen! Thunder!"