t down and valued
separately with miserly exactitude. The total amounted to thirty
thousand francs, including the license and the goodwill. David asked
himself whether or not this thing was feasible.

Old Sechard grew uneasy over his son's silence; he would rather have had
stormy argument than a wordless acceptance of the situation. Chaffering
in these sorts of bargains means that a man can look after his
interests. "A man who is ready to pay you anything you ask will pay
nothing," old Sechard was saying to himself. While he tried to follow
his son's train of thought, he went through the list of odds and ends
of plant needed by a country business, drawing David now to a hot-press,
now to a cutting-press, bragging of its usefulness and sound condition.

"Old tools are always the best tools," said he. "In our line of business
they ought to fetch more than the new, like goldbeaters' tools."

Hideous vignettes, representing Hymen and Cupids, skeletons raising the
lids of their tombs to describe a V or an M, and huge borders of masks
for theatrical posters became in turn objects of tremendous value
through old Jerome-Nicolas' vinous eloquence. Old custom, he told his
son, was so deeply rooted in the district that he (David) would only
waste his pains if he gave them the finest things in life. He himself
had tried to sell them a better class of almanac than the _Double
Liegeois_ on grocers' paper; and what came of it?--the original _Double
Liegeois_ sold better than the most sumptuous calendars. David would
soon see the importance of these old-fashioned things when he found he
could get more for them than for the most costly new-fangled articles.

"Aha! my boy, Paris is Paris, and the provinces are the provinces. If a
man came in from L'Houmeau with an order for wedding cards, and you were
to print them without a Cupid and garlands, he would not believe that
he was properly married; you would have them all back again if you sent
them out with a plain M on them after the style of your Messrs. Didot.
They may be fine printers, but their inventions won't take in the
provinces for another hundred years. So there you are."

A generous man is a bad bargain-driver. David's nature was of the
sensitive and affectionate type that shrinks from a dispute, and gives
way at once if an opponent touches his feelings. His loftiness of
feeling, and the fact that the old toper had himself well in hand, put
him still further at a disadvantag