of a
cooper, and some glue of the grocer, and come back again as soon as you
can."

"There! drink," said old Sechard, putting down a bottle of wine, a loaf,
and the cold remains of the dinner. "You will need your strength. I will
go and look for your bits of green stuff; green rags you use for your
pulp, and a trifle too green, I am afraid."

Two hours later, towards eleven o'clock that night, David and Kolb took
up their quarters in a little out-house against the cellar wall; they
found the floor paved with runnel tiles, and all the apparatus used in
Angoumois for the manufacture of Cognac brandy.

"Pans and firewood! Why, it is as good as a factory made on purpose!"
cried David.

"Very well, good-night," said old Sechard; "I shall lock you in, and
let both the dogs loose; nobody will bring you any paper, I am sure. You
show me those sheets to-morrow, and I give you my word I will be your
partner and the business will be straightforward and properly managed."

David and Kolb, locked into the distillery, spent nearly two hours
in macerating the stems, using a couple of logs for mallets. The fire
blazed up, the water boiled. About two o'clock in the morning, Kolb
heard a sound which David was too busy to notice, a kind of deep breath
like a suppressed hiccough. Snatching up one of the two lighted dips, he
looked round the walls, and beheld old Sechard's empurpled countenance
filling up a square opening above a door hitherto hidden by a pile of
empty casks in the cellar itself. The cunning old man had brought David
and Kolb into his underground distillery by the outer door, through
which the casks were rolled when full. The inner door had been made
so that he could roll his puncheons straight from the cellar into the
distillery, instead of taking them round through the yard.

"Aha! thees eies not fair blay, you vant to shvindle your son!" cried
the Alsacien. "Do you kow vot you do ven you trink ein pottle of vine?
You gif goot trink to ein bad scountrel."

"Oh, father!" cried David.

"I came to see if you wanted anything," said old Sechard, half sobered
by this time.

"Und it was for de inderest vot you take in us dot you brought der
liddle ladder!" commented Kolb, as he pushed the casks aside and flung
open the door; and there, in fact, on a short step-ladder, the old man
stood in his shirt.

"Risking your health!" said David.

"I think I must be walking in my sleep," said old Sechard, coming down
in confu