Two Poets | Page 9

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 had a penny left. If he, a poor, ignorant
working man, had made his way, Didot's apprentice should do still
better. Besides, had not David been earning money, thanks to an
education paid for by the sweat of his old father's brow? Now surely
was the time when the education would come in useful.
"What have you done with your 'polls?' " he asked, returning to the
charge. He meant to have light on a problem which his son left

unresolved the day before.
"Why, had I not to live?" David asked indignantly, "and books to buy
besides?"
"Oh! you bought books, did you? You will make a poor man of
business. A man that buys books is hardly fit to print them," retorted
the "bear."
Then David endured the most painful of humiliations--the sense of
shame for a parent; there was nothing for it but to be passive while his
father poured out a flood of reasons--sordid, whining, contemptible,
money-getting reasons--in which the niggardly old man wrapped his
refusal. David crushed down his pain into the depths of his soul; he saw
that he was alone; saw that he had no one to look to but himself; saw,
too, that his father was trying to make money out of him; and in a spirit
of philosophical curiosity, he tried to find out how far the old man
would go. He called old Sechard's attention to the fact that he had never
as yet made any inquiry as to his mother's fortune; if that fortune would
not buy the printing-house, it might go some ways towards paying the
working expenses.
"Your mother's fortune?" echoed old Sechard; "why, it was her beauty
and intelligence!"
David understood his father thoroughly after that answer; he
understood that only after an interminable, expensive, and disgraceful
lawsuit could he obtain any account of the money which by rights was
his. The noble heart accepted the heavy burden laid upon it, seeing
clearly beforehand how difficult it would be to free himself from the
engagements into which he had entered with his father.
"I will work," he said to himself. "After all, if I have a rough time of it,
so had the old man; besides, I shall be working for myself, shall I not?"
"I am leaving you a treasure," said Sechard, uneasy at his son's silence.
David asked what the treasure might be.
"Marion!" said his father.
Marion, a big country girl, was an indispensable part of the
establishment. It was Marion who damped the paper and cut it to size;
Marion did the cooking, washing, and marketing; Marion