Serving notice of protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
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Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046 20
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This document was accompanied by a letter from Metivier, instructing
Maitre Cachan, notary of Angouleme, to prosecute David Sechard with
the utmost rigor of the law. Wherefore Maitre Victor-Ange-Hermenegilde
Doublon summoned David Sechard before the Tribunal of Commerce in
Angouleme for the sum-total of four thousand and eighteen francs
eighty-five centimes, the amount of the three bills and expenses already
incurred. On the morning of the very day when Doublon served the writ
upon Eve, requiring her to pay a sum so enormous in her eyes, there came
a letter like a thunderbolt from Metivier:--

_To Monsieur Sechard, Junior, Printer, Angouleme._

"SIR,--Your brother-in-law, M. Chardon, is so shamelessly
dishonest, that he declares his furniture to be the property of an
actress with whom he is living. You ought to have informed me
candidly of these circumstances, and not have allowed me to go to
useless expense over law proceedings. I have received no answer
to my letter of the 10th of May last. You must not, therefore,
take it amiss if I ask for immediate repayment of the three bills
and the expenses to which I have been put.--Yours, etc.,
"METIVIER."

Eve had heard nothing during these months, and supposed, in her
ignorance of commercial law, that her brother had made reparation for
his sins by meeting the forged bills.

"Be quick, and go at once to Petit-Claud, dear," she said; "tell him
about it, and ask his advice."

David hurried to his schoolfellow's office.

"When you came to tell me of your appointment and offered me your
services, I did not think that I should need them so soon," he said.

Petit-Claud studied the fine face of this man who sat opposite him in
the office chair, and scarcely listened to the details of the case,
for he knew more of them already than the speaker. As soon as he saw
Sechard's anxiety, he said to himself, "The trick has succeeded."

This kind of comedy is often played in an attorney's office. "Why are
the Cointets persecuting him?" Petit-Claud wondered within himself, for
the attorney can use his wit to read his clients' thoughts