e in a dispute about money matters
with his own father, especially as he credited that father with the best
intentions, and took his covetous greed for a printer's attachment to
his old familiar tools. Still, as Jerome-Nicolas Sechard had taken the
whole place over from Rouzeau's widow for ten thousand francs, paid in
assignats, it stood to reason that thirty thousand francs in coin at the
present day was an exorbitant demand.

"Father, you are cutting my throat!" exclaimed David.

"_I_," cried the old toper, raising his hand to the lines of cord across
the ceiling, "I who gave you life? Why, David, what do you suppose the
license is worth? Do you know that the sheet of advertisements alone, at
fivepence a line, brought in five hundred francs last month? You turn
up the books, lad, and see what we make by placards and the registers at
the Prefecture, and the work for the mayor's office, and the bishop too.
You are a do-nothing that has no mind to get on. You are haggling
over the horse that will carry you to some pretty bit of property like
Marsac."

Attached to the valuation of plant there was a deed of partnership
between Sechard senior and his son. The good father was to let his
house and premises to the new firm for twelve hundred francs per annum,
reserving one of the two rooms in the roof for himself. So long as
David's purchase-money was not paid in full, the profits were to be
divided equally; as soon as he paid off his father, he was to be made
sole proprietor of the business.

David made a mental calculation of the value of the license, the
goodwill, and the stock of paper, leaving the plant out of account. It
was just possible, he thought, to clear off the debt. He accepted the
conditions. Old Sechard, accustomed to peasants' haggling, knowing
nothing of the wider business views of Paris, was amazed at such a
prompt conclusion.

"Can he have been putting money by?" he asked himself. "Or is he
scheming out, at this moment, some way of not paying me?"

With this notion in his head, he tried to find out whether David had any
money with him; he wanted to be paid something on account. The old man's
inquisitiveness roused his son's distrust; David remained close buttoned
up to the chin.

Next day, old Sechard made the apprentice move all his own household
stuff up into the attic until such time as an empty market cart could
take it out on the return journey into the country; and David entered
into possessi