Two Poets | Page 8

is two francs a pound, and the Messrs. Didot
only ask thirty-six sous for their Cicero! These nail-heads of yours will
only fetch the price of old metal--fivepence a pound."
"You call M. Gille's italics, running-hand and round-hand, 'nail- heads,'
do you? M. Gille, that used to be printer to the Emperor! And type that
costs six francs a pound! masterpieces of engraving, bought only five
years ago. Some of them are as bright yet as when they came from the
foundry. Look here!"
Old Sechard pounced upon some packets of unused sorts, and held
them out for David to see.
"I am not book-learned; I don't know how to read or write; but, all the
same, I know enough to see that M. Gille's sloping letters are the
fathers of your Messrs. Didot's English running-hand. Here is the
round-hand," he went on, taking up an unused pica type.
David saw that there was no way of coming to terms with his father. It
was a case of Yes or No--of taking or leaving it. The very ropes across
the ceiling had gone down into the old "bear's" inventory, and not the
smallest item was omitted; jobbing chases, wetting-boards, paste-pots,
rinsing-trough, and lye-brushes had all been put 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 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