Old Simon frowned savagely.

"Yes, he will," he exclaimed. "I'll make him do it. I've made him do
harder things than that; it's a pity if I can't make him do what's for
his own benefit now!" He struck the floor viciously with his cane.

"Easy," said the lawyer, soothingly, "easy; I fear the boy has been
his own master too long to be bullied. We shall have to work him in a
different way now. I think I can manage it, though. I'll have him come
down here some day, after we get Mrs. Burnham's refusal to acknowledge
him, and I'll explain matters to him, and show him why it's necessary
that you should take hold of the case. I'll use logic with him, and
I'll wager that he'll come around all right. You must treat boys as
though they were men, Craft. They will listen to reason, and yield to
persuasion, but they won't be bullied, not even into a fortune. By the
way, I don't quite understand how it was, if Burnham was searching
energetically for the boy, and you were searching with as much energy
for the boy's father all those years, that you didn't meet each other
sooner."

Craft looked up slyly from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"May I speak confidentially?" he asked.

"Certainly."

"Well, then, I didn't wear myself out hunting for the boy's friends,
for the first year or two. Time increases the value of some things,
you know--lost children, particularly. I knew there was money back
of the boy by the looks of his clothes. I kept matters pretty well