David was completely floored by this reasoning. Practical wisdom spoke in matter-of-fact language to theory, whose word is always for the future.
“Devil fetch me, if I’ll sign such a deed of partnership!” the stout Cointet cried bluntly. “You may throw away your money if you like, Boniface; as for me, I shall keep mine. Here is my offer—to pay M. Séchard’s debts and six thousand francs, and another three thousand francs in bills at twelve and fifteen months,” he added. “That will be quite enough risk to run.—We have a balance of twelve thousand francs against Métivier. That will make fifteen thousand francs.—That is all that I would pay for the secret if I were going to exploit it for myself. So this is the great discovery that you were talking about, Boniface! Many thanks! I thought you had more sense. No, you can’t call this business.”
“The question for you,” said Petit-Claud, undismayed by the explosion, “resolves itself into this: ‘Do you care to risk twenty thousand francs to buy a secret that may make rich men of you?’ Why, the risk usually is in proportion to the profit, gentlemen. You stake twenty thousand francs on your luck. A gambler puts down a louis at roulette for a chance of winning thirty-six, but he knows that the louis is lost. Do the same.”
“I must have time to think it over,” said the stout Cointet; “I am not so clever as my brother. I am a plain, straightforward sort of chap, that only knows one thing—how to print prayerbooks at twenty sous and sell them for two francs. Where I see an invention that has only been tried once, I see ruin. You succeed with the first batch, you spoil the next, you go on, and you are drawn in; for once put an arm into that machinery, the rest of you follows,” and he related an anecdote very much to the point—how a Bordeaux merchant had ruined himself by following a scientific man’s advice, and trying to bring the Landes into cultivation; and followed up the tale with half-a-dozen similar instances of agricultural and commercial failures nearer home in the departments of the Charente and Dordogne. He waxed warm over his recitals. He would not listen to another word. Petit-Claud’s demurs, so far from soothing the stout Cointet, appeared to irritate him.
“I would rather give more for a certainty, if I made only a small profit on it,” he said, looking at his brother. “It is my opinion that things have gone far enough for business,” he concluded.
“Still you came here for something, didn’t you?” asked Petit-Claud. “What is your offer?”
“I offer to release M. Séchard, and, if his plan succeeds, to give him thirty percent of the profits,” the stout Cointet answered briskly.
“But, monsieur,” objected Eve, “how should we live while the experiments were being made? My husband has endured the disgrace of imprisonment already; he may as well go back to prison, it makes no difference now, and we will pay our debts ourselves—”
Petit-Claud laid a finger on his lips in warning.
“You are unreasonable,” said he, addressing the brothers. “You have seen the paper; M. Séchard’s father told you that he had shut his son up, and that he had made capital paper in a single night from materials that must have cost a mere nothing. You are here to make an offer. Are you purchasers, yes or no?”
“Stay,” said the tall Cointet, “whether my brother is willing or no, I will risk this much myself. I will pay M. Séchard’s debts, I will pay six thousand francs over and above the debts, and M. Séchard shall have thirty percent of the profits. But mind this—if in the space of one year he fails to carry out the undertakings which he himself will make in the deed of partnership, he must return the six thousand francs, and we shall keep the patent and extricate ourselves as best we may.”
“Are you sure of yourself?” asked Petit-Claud, taking David aside.
“Yes,” said David. He was deceived by the tactics of the brothers, and afraid lest the stout Cointet should break off the negotiations on which his future depended.
“Very well, I will draft the deed,” said Petit-Claud, addressing the rest of the party. “Each of you shall have a copy tonight, and you will have all tomorrow morning in which to think it over. Tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock, when the court rises, you will sign the agreement. You, gentlemen, will withdraw Métivier’s suit, and I, for my part, will write to stop proceedings in the Court-Royal; we will give notice on either side that the affair has been settled out of court.”
David Séchard’s undertakings were thus worded in the deed:—
“M. David Séchard, printer of Angoulême, affirming that he has discovered a method of sizing paper-pulp in the vat, and also a method of affecting a reduction of fifty percent in the price of all kinds of manufactured papers, by introducing certain vegetable substances into the pulp, either by intermixture of such substances with the rags already in use, or by employing them solely without the addition of rags: a partnership for working the patent to be presently applied for is entered upon by M. David Séchard and the firm of Cointet Brothers, subject to the following conditional clauses and stipulations.”
One of the clauses so drafted that David Séchard forfeited all his rights if he failed to fulfil his engagements within the year; the tall Cointet was particularly careful to insert that clause, and David Séchard allowed it to pass.
When Petit-Claud appeared with a copy of the agreement next morning at half-past seven o’clock, he brought news for David and his wife. Cérizet offered twenty-two thousand francs for the business. The whole affair could be signed and settled in the course of the evening. “But if the Cointets knew about it,” he added, “they would be quite capable of refusing to sign the deed of partnership, of harassing you, and selling you
