to make sure. You
see, there is nothing you must be so much on your guard against as an
inventor."

"I have a liking for bread ready buttered myself," added the tall
Cointet.

All through that night the old man ruminated over this dilemma--"If I
pay David's debts, he will be set at liberty, and once set at liberty,
he need not share his fortune with me unless he chooses. He knows very
well that I cheated him over the first partnership, and he will not
care to try a second; so it is to my interest to keep him shut up, the
wretched boy."

The Cointets knew enough of Sechard senior to see that they should hunt
in couples. All three said to themselves--"Experiments must be tried
before the discovery can take any practical shape. David Sechard must be
set at liberty before those experiments can be made; and David Sechard,
set at liberty, will slip through our fingers."

Everybody involved, moreover, had his own little afterthought.

Petit-Claud, for instance, said, "As soon as I am married, I will slip
my neck out of the Cointets' yoke; but till then I shall hold on."

The tall Cointet thought, "I would rather have David under lock and key,
and then I should be master of the situation."

Old Sechard, too, thought, "If I pay my son's debts, he will repay me
with a 'Thank you!'"

Eve, hard pressed (for the old man threatened now to turn her out of the
house), would neither reveal her husband's hiding-place, nor even send
proposals of a safe-conduct. She could not feel sure of finding so safe
a refuge a second time.

"Set your son at liberty," she told her father-in-law, "and then you
shall know everything."

The four interested persons sat, as it were, with a banquet spread
before them, none of them daring to begin, each one suspicious and
watchful of his neighbor. A few days after David went into hiding,
Petit-Claud went to the mill to see the tall Cointet.

"I have done my best," he said; "David has gone into prison of his own
accord somewhere or other; he is working out some improvement there in
peace. It is no fault of mine if you have not gained your end; are you
going to keep your promise?"

"Yes, if we succeed," said the tall Cointet. "Old Sechard was here only
a day or two ago; he came to ask us some questions as to paper-making.
The old miser has got wind of his son's invention; he wants to turn it
to his own account, so there is some hope of a partnership. You are with
the father and the son----"

"