t of the trade."

Eve rose to her feet. David's simple-mindedness had roused her to
enthusiasm, to admiration; she held out her arms to him and held him
tightly to her, while she laid her head upon his shoulder.

"You give me my reward as if I had succeeded already," he said.

For all answer, Eve held up her sweet face, wet with tears, to his, and
for a moment she could not speak.

"The kiss was not for the man of genius," she said, "but for my
comforter. Here is a rising glory for the glory that has set; and,
in the midst of my grief for the brother that has fallen so low, my
husband's greatness is revealed to me.--Yes, you will be great, great
like the Graindorges, the Rouvets, and Van Robais, and the Persian who
discovered madder, like all the men you have told me about; great men
whom nobody remembers, because their good deeds were obscure industrial
triumphs."

"What are they doing just now?"

It was Boniface Cointet who spoke. He was walking up and down outside in
the Place du Murier with Cerizet watching the silhouettes of the husband
and wife on the blinds. He always came at midnight for a chat with
Cerizet, for the latter played the spy upon his former master's every
movement.

"He is showing her the paper he made this morning, no doubt," said
Cerizet.

"What is it made of?" asked the paper manufacturer.

"Impossible to guess," answered Cerizet; "I made a hole in the roof and
scrambled up and watched the gaffer; he was boiling pulp in a copper pan
all last night. There was a heap of stuff in a corner, but I could make
nothing of it; it looked like a heap of tow, as near as I could make
out."

"Go no farther," said Boniface Cointet in unctuous tones; "it would not
be right. Mme. Sechard will offer to renew your lease; tell her that you
are thinking of setting up for yourself. Offer her half the value of the
plant and license, and, if she takes the bid, come to me. In any case,
spin the matter out. . . . Have they no money?"

"Not a sou," said Cerizet.

"Not a sou," repeated tall Cointet.--"I have them now," said he to
himself.

Metivier, paper manufacturers' wholesale agent, and Cointet Brothers,
printers and paper manufacturers, were also bankers in all but name.
This surreptitious banking system defies all the ingenuity of the Inland
Revenue Department. Every banker is required to take out a license
which, in Paris, costs five hundred francs; but no hitherto devised
method of controlling co