"You call M. Gille's italics, running-hand and round-hand,
'nail-heads,' do you? M. Gille, that used to be printer to the Emperor!
And type that costs six francs a pound! masterpieces of engraving,
bought only five years ago. Some of them are as bright yet as when they
came from the foundry. Look here!"

Old Sechard pounced upon some packets of unused sorts, and held them
out for David to see.

"I am not book-learned; I don't know how to read or write; but, all
the same, I know enough to see that M. Gille's sloping letters are the
fathers of your Messrs. Didot's English running-hand. Here is the
round-hand," he went on, taking up an unused pica type.

David saw that there was no way of coming to terms with his father. It
was a case of Yes or No--of taking or leaving it. The very ropes
across the ceiling had gone down into the old "bear's" inventory, and
not the smallest item was omitted; jobbing chases, wetting-boards,
paste-pots, rinsing-trough, and lye-brushes had all been put down and
valued separately with miserly exactitude. The total amounted to
thirty thousand francs, including the license and the goodwill. David
asked himself whether or not this thing was feasible.

Old Sechard grew uneasy over his son's silence; he would rather have
had stormy argument than a wordless acceptance of the situation.
Chaffering in these sorts of bargains means that a man can look after
his interests. "A man who is ready to pay you anything you ask will
pay nothing," old Sechard was saying to himself. While he tried to
follow his son's train of thought, he went through the list of odds
and ends of plant needed by a country business, drawing David now to a