Two Poets | Page 7

decorated with wall-paper--
Oriental scenes in sepia tint--and for all furniture, half-a-dozen chairs
with lyre-shaped backs and blue leather cushions were ranged round
the room. The two clumsy arched windows that gave upon the Place du
Murier were curtainless; there was neither clock nor candle sconce nor
mirror above the mantel-shelf, for Mme. Sechard had died before she
carried out her scheme of decoration; and the "bear," unable to
conceive the use of improvements that brought in no return in money,
had left it at this point.
Hither, pede titubante, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard brought his son, and
pointed to a sheet of paper lying on the table--a valuation of plant
drawn up by the foreman under his direction.
"Read that, my boy," said Jerome-Nicolas, rolling a drunken eye from
the paper to his son, and back to the paper. "You will see what a jewel
of a printing-house I am giving you."
" 'Three wooden presses, held in position by iron tie-bars, cast-iron
plates----' "
"An improvement of my own," put in Sechard senior.
" '----Together with all the implements, ink-tables, balls, benches, et
cetera, sixteen hundred francs!' Why, father," cried David, letting the
sheet fall, "these presses of yours are old sabots not worth a hundred
crowns; they are only fit for firewood."
"Sabots?" cried old Sechard, "SABOTS? There, take the inventory and
let us go downstairs. You will soon see whether your paltry iron-work
contrivances will work like these solid old tools, tried and trusty. You
will not have the heart after that to slander honest old presses that go
like mail coaches, and are good to last you your lifetime without
needing repairs of any sort. Sabots! Yes, sabots that are like to hold salt
enough to cook your eggs with--sabots that your father has plodded on
with these twenty years; they have helped him to make you what you
are."
The father, without coming to grief on the way, lurched down the worn,
knotty staircase that shook under his tread. In the passage he opened the
door of the workshop, flew to the nearest press (artfully oiled and

cleaned for the occasion) and pointed out the strong oaken cheeks,
polished up by the apprentice.
"Isn't it a love of a press?"
A wedding announcement lay in the press. The old "bear" folded down
the frisket upon the tympan, and the tympan upon the form, ran in the
carriage, worked the lever, drew out the carriage, and lifted the frisket
and tympan, all with as much agility as the youngest of the tribe. The
press, handled in this sort, creaked aloud in such fine style that you
might have thought some bird had dashed itself against the window
pane and flown away again.
"Where is the English press that could go at that pace?" the parent
asked of his astonished son.
Old Sechard hurried to the second, and then to the third in order,
repeating the manoeuvre with equal dexterity. The third presenting to
his wine-troubled eye a patch overlooked by the apprentice, with a
notable oath he rubbed it with the skirt of his overcoat, much as a
horse-dealer polishes the coat of an animal that he is trying to sell.
"With those three presses, David, you can make your nine thousand
francs a year without a foreman. As your future partner, I am opposed
to your replacing these presses by your cursed cast-iron machinery, that
wears out the type. You in Paris have been making such a to-do over
that damned Englishman's invention--a foreigner, an enemy of France
who wants to help the ironfounders to a fortune. Oh! you wanted
Stanhopes, did you? Thanks for your Stanhopes, that cost two thousand
five hundred francs apiece, about twice as much as my three jewels put
together, and maul your type to pieces, because there is no give in them.
I haven't book-learning like you, but you keep this well in mind, the life
of the Stanhope is the death of the type. Those three presses will serve
your turn well enough, the printing will be properly done, and folk here
in Angouleme won't ask any more of you. You may print with presses
made of wood or iron or gold or silver, THEY will never pay you a
farthing more."
" 'Item,' " pursued David, " 'five thousand pounds weight of type from
M. Vaflard's foundry----' " Didot's apprentice could not help smiling at
the name.
"Laugh away! After twelve years of wear, that type is as good as new.
That is what I call a typefounder! M. Vaflard is an honest man, who

uses hard metal; and, to my way of thinking, the best typefounder is the
one you go to most seldom."
" '----Taken at ten thousand francs,' " continued David. "Ten thousand
francs, father! Why, that