Next day, old Sechard made the apprentice move all his own household stuff up into the attic until such time as an empty market cart could take it out on the return journey into the country; and David entered into possession of three bare, unfurnished rooms on the day that saw him installed in the printing-house, without one sou wherewith to pay his men’s wages.  When he asked his father, as a partner, to contribute his share towards the working expenses, the old man pretended not to understand.  He had found the printing-house, he said, and he was not bound to find the money too.  He had paid his share.  Pressed close by his son’s reasoning, he answered that when he himself had paid Rouzeau’s widow he had not had a penny left.  If he, a poor, ignorant working man, had made his way, Didot’s apprentice should do still better.  Besides, had not David been earning money, thanks to an education paid for by the sweat of his old father’s brow?  Now surely was the time when the education would come in useful.

“What have you done with your ‘polls?’” he asked, returning to the charge.  He meant to have light on a problem which his son left unresolved the day before.

“Why, had I not to live?” David asked indignantly, “and books to buy besides?”

“Oh! you bought books, did you?  You will make a poor man of business.  A man that buys books is hardly fit to print them,” retorted the “bear.”

Then David endured the most painful of humiliations—­the sense of shame for a parent; there was nothing for it but to be passive while his father poured out a flood of reasons—­sordid, whining, contemptible, money-getting reasons—­in which the niggardly old man wrapped his refusal.  David crushed down his pain into the depths of his soul; he saw that he was alone; saw that he had no one to look to but himself; saw, too, that his father was trying to make money out of him; and in a spirit of philosophical curiosity, he tried to find out how far the old man would go.  He called old Sechard’s attention to the fact that he had never as yet made any inquiry as to his mother’s fortune; if that fortune would not buy the printing-house, it might go some ways towards paying the working expenses.

“Your mother’s fortune?” echoed old Sechard; “why, it was her beauty and intelligence!”

David understood his father thoroughly after that answer; he understood that only after an interminable, expensive, and disgraceful lawsuit could he obtain any account of the money which by rights was his.  The noble heart accepted the heavy burden laid upon it, seeing clearly beforehand how difficult it would be to free himself from the engagements into which he had entered with his father.

“I will work,” he said to himself.  “After all, if I have a rough time of it, so had the old man; besides, I shall be working for myself, shall I not?”

“I am leaving you a treasure,” said Sechard, uneasy at his son’s silence.