d any one employ a man whose father had been a Septembrist, a
Bonapartist, and a drunkard to boot? The old man was sure to leave
plenty of gold pieces behind him. They themselves were poor men with
families to support, while David was a bachelor and could do as he
pleased; he would have plenty one of these days; he could afford to
take things easily; whereas . . . and so forth and so forth.

Such tales against David, once put into circulation, produced their
effect. The monopoly of the prefectorial and diocesan work passed
gradually into the hands of Cointet Brothers; and before long David's
keen competitors, emboldened by his inaction, started a second local
sheet of advertisements and announcements. The older establishment was
left at length with the job-printing orders from the town, and the
circulation of the _Charente Chronicle_ fell off by one-half. Meanwhile
the Cointets grew richer; they had made handsome profits on their
devotional books; and now they offered to buy Sechard's paper, to have
all the trade and judicial announcements of the department in their
own hands.

The news of this proposal sent by David to his father brought the old
vinegrower from Marsac into the Place du Murier with the swiftness of
the raven that scents the corpses on a battlefield.

"Leave me to manage the Cointets," said he to his son; "don't you
meddle in this business."

The old man saw what the Cointets meant; and they took alarm at his
clearsighted sagacity. His son was making a blunder, he said, and he,
Sechard, had come to put a stop to it.

"What was to become of the connection if David gave up the paper? It
all depended upon the paper. All the attorneys and solicitors and men
of business in L'Houmeau were Liberals to a man. The Cointets had
tried to ruin the Sechards by accusing them of Liberalism, and by so
doing gave them a plank to cling to--the Sechards should keep the
Liberal business. Sell the paper indeed! Why, you might as well sell
the stock-in-trade and the license!"

Old Sechard asked the Cointets sixty thousand francs for the printing
business, so as not to ruin his son; he was fond of his son; he was
taking his son's part. The vinegrower brought his son to the front to
gain his point, as a peasant brings in his wife.

His son was unwilling to do this, that, or the other; it varied
according to the offers which he wrung one after another from the
Cointets, until, not without an effort, he drew them on to gi