ing him, for instance,
what he knew about Dubuche's real position. At the outset, old
Margaillan, glorifying in his bemedalled son-in-law, had trotted him
about and introduced him everywhere as his partner and successor. There
was a fellow who would conduct business briskly, who would build houses
more cheaply and in finer style than ever, for hadn't he grown pale
over books? But Dubuche's first idea proved disastrous; on some land
belonging to his father-in-law in Burgundy he established a brickyard
in so unfavourable a situation, and after so defective a plan, that the
venture resulted in the sheer loss of two hundred thousand francs. Then
he turned his attention to erecting houses, insisting upon bringing
personal ideas into execution, a certain general scheme of his which
would revolutionise the building art. These ideas were the old theories
he held from the revolutionary chums of his youth, everything that he
had promised he would realise when he was free; but he had not properly
reduced the theories to method, and he applied them unseasonably, with
the awkwardness of a pupil lacking the sacred fire; he experimented with
terra-cotta and pottery ornamentation, large bay windows, and especially
with the employment of iron--iron girders, iron staircases, and iron
roofings; and as the employment of these materials increased the outlay,
he again ended with a catastrophe, which was all the greater as he was
a pitiful manager, and had lost his head since he had become rich,
rendered the more obtuse, it seemed, by money, quite spoilt and at
sea, unable even to revert to his old habits of industry. This time
Margaillan grew angry; he for thirty years had been buying ground,
building and selling again, estimating at a glance the cost and return
of house property; so many yards of building at so much the foot having
to yield so many suites of rooms at so much rent. He wouldn't have
anything more to do with a fellow who blundered about lime, bricks,
millstones, and in fact everything, who employed oak when deal would
have suited, and who could not bring himself to cut up a storey--like a
consecrated wafer--into as many little squares as was necessary. No, no,
none of that! He rebelled against art, after having been ambitious
to introduce a little of it into his routine, in order to satisfy a
long-standing worry about his own ignorance. And after that matters
had gone from bad to worse, terrible quarrels had arisen between the