I am not an expert, but I cannot detect any difference greater
than maybe existed between two signatures of the same person."

"Then I suppose there is nothing to be done at present. I expect to have
a hard time with Mr. Manning, Mr. Ferret."

"How has he treated you in the past, Frank?" asked the lawyer.

"I have had nothing to complain of; but then he was not master of the
estate. Now it is difficult, and I think his treatment of me will be
different."

"You may be right. You remember what I said, Frank?"

"That I should regard you as a friend? I won't forget it, Mr. Ferret."

One by one the company left the house, and Frank was alone.

Left alone and unsustained by sympathy, he felt more bitterly than
before the totally unexpected change in his circumstances.

Up to the last hour he had regarded himself as the heir of the estate.
Now he was only a dependent of a man whom he heartily disliked.

Could it be that this misfortune had come to him through the agency of
his mother?

"I will not believe it!" he exclaimed, energetically.

CHAPTER VI

AN UNSATISFACTORY INTERVIEW

Frank came to a decision the next morning. A long deferred interview
with his stepfather was necessary. Having made up his mind, he entered
the room in which his stepfather sat. His air was manly and his bearing
that of a boy who respects himself, but there was none of the swagger
which some boys think it necessary to exhibit when they wish to assert
their rights.

Mr. Manning, in a flowered dressing gown, sat at a table, with a sheet
of paper before him and a lead pencil in his hand. Short as had been the
interval since his accession to the property, he was figuring up the
probable income he would derive from the estate.

He looked up as Frank entered the room, and surveyed him with cold and
sarcastic eyes. His soft tones were dropped.

"Mr. Manning," said Frank, "I wish to talk to you."

"You may, of course," his stepfather replied mildly. "It is about the
will," Frank advised him.

"So you would complain of your poor mother, would you?" said his
stepfather, in a tone of virtuous indignation.

"I cannot believe that my mother made that will."

Mr. Manning colored. He scented danger. Should Frank drop such hints
elsewhere, he might make trouble, and lead to a legal investigation,
which Mr. Manning had every reason to dread.

"This is very foolish," he said, more mildly. "No doubt you are
disappointed, but probably yo