as clearly as
the ideas of their opponents, and it is his business to see both sides
of the judicial web.

"You want to gain time," he said at last, when Sechard had come to an
end. "How long do you want? Something like three or four months?"

"Oh! four months! that would be my salvation," exclaimed David.
Petit-Claud appeared to him as an angel.

"Very well. No one shall lay hands on any of your furniture, and no one
shall arrest you for four months----But it will cost you a great deal,"
said Petit-Claud.

"Eh! what does that matter to me?" cried Sechard.

"You are expecting some money to come in; but are you sure of it?" asked
Petit-Claud, astonished at the way in which his client walked into the
toils.

"In three months' time I shall have plenty of money," said the inventor,
with an inventor's hopeful confidence.

"Your father is still above ground," suggested Petit-Claud; "he is in no
hurry to leave his vines."

"Do you think that I am counting on my father's death?" returned David.
"I am on the track of a trade secret, the secret of making a sheet of
paper as strong as Dutch paper, without a thread of cotton in it, and at
a cost of fifty per cent less than cotton pulp."

"There is a fortune in that!" exclaimed Petit-Claud. He knew now what
the tall Cointet meant.

"A large fortune, my friend, for in ten years' time the demand for paper
will be ten times larger than it is to-day. Journalism will be the craze
of our day."

"Nobody knows your secret?"

"Nobody except my wife."

"You have not told any one what you mean to do--the Cointets, for
example?"

"I did say something about it, but in general terms, I think."

A sudden spark of generosity flashed through Petit-Claud's rancorous
soul; he tried to reconcile Sechard's interests with the Cointet's
projects and his own.

"Listen, David, we are old schoolfellows, you and I; I will fight your
case; but understand this clearly--the defence, in the teeth of the
law, will cost you five or six thousand francs! Do not compromise your
prospects. I think you will be compelled to share the profits of your
invention with some one of our paper manufacturers. Let us see now. You
will think twice before you buy or build a paper mill; and there is
the cost of the patent besides. All this means time, and money too. The
servers of writs will be down upon you too soon, perhaps, although we
are going to give them the slip----"

"I have my secret," said David, wi