Monsieur Cardonnet listened to the lad with much attention, and, when he had finished, said to him, passing his hand over his head with a fatherly, caressing touch, but with a calm smile of conscious power: "I am well pleased with you, Emile. I see that you are busy; that you are working in earnest; and that you are no longer wasting your time running about from château to château. You have been talking very clearly, like a conscientious young lawyer who has studied his case carefully. I thank you for the excellent direction your ideas are taking; and do you know what affords me the most pleasure? that you apply yourself to your work as I had hoped that you would as a result of hard study. Here you are already eager for success; you feel its potent excitement. You are passing through the inevitable stages of alarm, doubt, and even momentary discouragement which accompany the development of every important plan in the genius of the manufacturer. Yes, Emile, that is what I call conceiving and giving birth. This mystery of the will is not begotten without pain; it is with the man's brain as with the woman's womb. But set your mind at rest now, my boy. The danger that you fancy that you have discovered exists only upon a superficial examination of things, and you cannot grasp the whole subject in a simple walk. I passed a week exploring this stream before I laid the first stone on its banks, and I took counsel of a man more experienced than you. See, here is a plan of the whole locality, with the levels, measurements and depths of water. Let us look it over together." Emile examined the plan with care and discovered several actual mistakes. They had considered it impossible that the water should reach a certain elevation even in extraordinary freshets, and that certain barriers could hold it in check beyond a certain number of hours. They had figured on contingencies, and the commonest experience, the testimony of any witness of what had happened theretofore, would have sufficed to destroy the theory, if they had been willing to listen to that evidence. But that was something that Cardonnet's proud and distrustful nature could not do. He had placed himself at the mercy of the elements, with his eyes closed, like Napoléon in the Russian campaign, and in his superb obstinacy he would willingly have undertaken, like Xerxes, to whip the rebellious Neptune into submission. His adviser, although a very clever man, had thought of nothing but encouraging his ambition, or had allowed himself to be swayed and influenced by that ardent will.