due to him
unless they were paid before the week was out.

"I will pay you if you will show me how to disinherit my son without
injuring my daughter-in-law or the boy," said old Sechard, and they
parted forthwith.

"How well the 'tall Cointet' knows the folk he is dealing with! It is
just as he said; those seven hundred francs will prevent the father
from paying seven thousand," the little lawyer thought within himself
as he climbed the path to Angouleme. "Still, that old slyboots of a
paper-maker must not overreach us; it is time to ask him for something
besides promises."

"Well, David dear, what do you mean to do?" asked Eve, when the lawyer
had followed her father-in-law.

"Marion, put your biggest pot on the fire!" called David; "I have my
secret fast."

At this Eve put on her bonnet and shawl and walking shoes with
feverish haste.

"Kolb, my friend, get ready to go out," she said, "and come with me;
if there is any way out of this hell, I must find it."

When Eve had gone out, Marion spoke to David. "Do be sensible, sir,"
she said, "or the mistress will fret herself to death. Make some money
to pay off your debts, and then you can try to find treasure at your
ease----"

"Don't talk, Marion," said David; "I am going to overcome my last
difficulty, and then I can apply for the patent and the improvement on
the patent at the same time."

This "improvement on the patent" is the curse of the French patentee.
A man may spend ten years of his life in working out some obscure
industrial problem; and when he has invented some piece of machinery,
or made a discovery of some kind, he takes out a patent and imagines
that he has a right to his own invention; then there comes a
competitor; and unless the first inventor has foreseen all possible
contingencies, the second comer makes an "improvement on the patent"
with a screw or a nut, and takes the whole thing out of his hands. The
discovery of a cheap material for paper pulp, therefore, is by no
means the conclusion of the whole matter. David Sechard was anxiously
looking ahead on all sides lest the fortune sought in the teeth of
such difficulties should be snatched out of his hands at the last.
Dutch paper as flax paper is still called, though it is no longer made
in Holland, is slightly sized; but every sheet is sized separately by
hand, and this increases the cost of production. If it were possible
to discover some way of sizing the paper in the pulping-tro