Old Roland was listening, and at the same time trying to get in, between the sentences, his account of another dinner, given by a friend of his at Mendon, after which every guest was ill for a fortnight.Mme.Rosemilly, Jean, and his mother were planning an excursion to breakfast at Saint Jouin, from which they promised themselves the greatest pleasure; and Pierre was only sorry that he had not dined alone in some pot-house by the sea, so as to escape all this noise and laughter and glee which fretted him.

He was wondering how he could now set to work to confide his fears to his brother, and induce him to renounce the fortune he had already accepted and of which he was enjoying the intoxicating foretaste.

It would be hard on him, no doubt; but it must be done; he could not hesitate; their mother's reputation was at stake.
The appearance of an enormous shade-fish threw Roland back on fishing stories.

Beausire told some wonderful tales of adventure on the Gaboon, at Sainte-Marie, in Madagascar, and above all, off the coasts of China and Japan, where the fish are as queer-looking as the natives.

And he described the appearance of these fishes--their goggle gold eyes, their blue or red bellies, their fantastic fins like fans, their eccentric crescent-shaped tails--with such droll gesticulation that they all laughed till they cried as they listened.
Pierre alone seemed incredulous, muttering to himself: "True enough, the Normans are the Gascons of the north!" After the fish came a vol-au-vent, then a roast fowl, a salad, French beans with a Pithiviers lark-pie.