Lost Illusions | Page 9

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 disadvantage 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
possession of three bare, unfurnished rooms on the day that saw him
installed in the printing-house, without one sou wherewith to pay his
men's wages. When he asked his father, as a partner, to contribute his
share towards the working expenses, the old man pretended not to
understand. He had found the printing-house, he said, and he was not
bound to find the money too. He had paid his share. Pressed close by
his son's reasoning, he answered that when he himself had paid
Rouzeau's widow he had not