le beseemed
the elder brother's benevolence. Jean took the storms department; he
would fly into a rage, and propose terms that nobody would think
of accepting, to pave the way for his brother's less unreasonable
propositions. And by such policy the pair attained their ends, sooner or
later.

Eve, with a woman's tact, had soon divined the characters of the two
brothers; she was on her guard with foes so formidable. David, informed
beforehand of everything by his wife, lent a profoundly inattentive mind
to his enemies' proposals.

"Come to an understanding with my wife," he said, as he left the
Cointets in the office and went back to his laboratory. "Mme. Sechard
knows more about the business than I do myself. I am interested in
something that will pay better than this poor place; I hope to find a
way to retrieve the losses that I have made through you----"

"And how?" asked the fat Cointet, chuckling.

Eve gave her husband a look that meant, "Be careful!"

"You will be my tributaries," said David, "and all other consumers of
papers besides."

"Then what are you investigating?" asked the hypocritical Boniface
Cointet.

Boniface's question slipped out smoothly and insinuatingly, and again
Eve's eyes implored her husband to give an answer that was no answer, or
to say nothing at all.

"I am trying to produce paper at fifty per cent less than the present
cost price," and he went. He did not see the glances exchanged between
the brothers. "That is an inventor, a man of his build cannot sit with
his hands before him.--Let us exploit him," said Boniface's eyes. "How
can we do it?" said Jean's.

Mme. Sechard spoke. "David treats me just in the same way," she said.
"If I show any curiosity, he feels suspicious of my name, no doubt, and
out comes that remark of his; it is only a formula, after all."

"If your husband can work out the formula, he will certainly make a
fortune more quickly than by printing; I am not surprised that he
leaves the business to itself," said Boniface, looking across the empty
workshop, where Kolb, seated upon a wetting-board, was rubbing his bread
with a clove of garlic; "but it would not suit our views to see this
place in the hands of an energetic, pushing, ambitious competitor,"
he continued, "and perhaps it might be possible to arrive at an
understanding. Suppose, for instance, that you consented for a
consideration to allow us to put in one of our own men to work your
presses for our b