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The sitting-room had been partly modernized by the late Mme. Sechard; the walls were adorned with a wainscot, fearful to behold, painted the color of powder blue. The panels were 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.
"I am engaged by the other side," pronounced Cachan, "and I cannot appear for the father when I am suing the son; but go to Petit-Claud, he is very clever, he may perhaps do even better for you than I should do." Cachan and Petit-Claud met at the Court. "I have sent you Sechard senior," said Cachan; "take the case for me in exchange."
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?
But philosophers inform us that old age is apt to revert to the habits of youth, and Sechard senior is a case in point the older he grew, the better he loved to drink.
"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.
Every evening during the winter these persons came to play an artless game of boston for centime points, to borrow the papers, or return those they had finished. When Monsieur and Madame Sechard had bought La Verberie, a fine house built of stone, and roofed with slate, the pleasure-grounds consisted of a garden of two acres.
"You are in favor," said old Sechard; "they are talking about you in the town as if you were somebody! Angouleme and L'Houmeau are disputing as to which shall twist wreaths for you."
Wherefore, a press which turns out beautiful work cannot compete in the printing of such sheets, coarse though they may be. So, for the first time since old Sechard retired, two presses were at work in the old house. The calendar was, in its way, a masterpiece; but Eve was obliged to sell it for less than a halfpenny, for the Cointets were supplying hawkers at the rate of three centimes per copy.
"'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."
The Abbe saw in this humble private room a little man with thin, light hair; and recognized him at once, from Lucien's description, as the Judas who had ruined David Sechard. "Can we talk here without risk of being overheard?" said the Spaniard, now metamorphosed into a red-haired Englishman with blue spectacles, as clean and prim as a Puritan going to meeting. "Why, monsieur?" said Cerizet.
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