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."

He again put the table between them, and stood puffing from the unwonted
haste with which he had eluded her grasp. He had managed the matter
badly, and as his hand, thrust into his coat pocket, touched a check he
had written and placed there as a preliminary to this interview, a
sheepish expression crossed his face.

"Well," he blurted, "I'd like to know what in thunder you're going to
do! I tell you it's yours by right. I ought to have given it to you long
ago."

"I'm skipping," said Phil, reaching down to button her raincoat. "We're
going to Rose's for tea."

"Tea?"

Amzi's emphasis implied that in tea lay the sole importance of Phil's
announcement; and yet, subjected to even the most superficial analysis,
Mr. Montgomery's sensations were not in the least attributable to the
thought of tea. Tea in the sense intended by P