ngo,
which is as much as to say two glasses of vermouth never hurt any one.
Look at me; since I have left the sea, in this way I give myself an
artificial roll or two every day before dinner; I add a little pitching
after my coffee, and that keeps things lively for the rest of the
evening. I never rise to a hurricane, mind you, never, never. I am too
much afraid of damage."

Roland, whose nautical mania was humoured by the old mariner, laughed
heartily, his face flushed already and his eye watery from the absinthe.
He had a burly shop-keeping stomach--nothing but stomach--in which the
rest of his body seemed to have got stowed away; the flabby paunch of
men who spend their lives sitting, and who have neither thighs, nor
chest, nor arms, nor neck; the seat of their chairs having accumulated
all their substance in one spot. Beausire, on the contrary, though short
and stout, was as tight as an egg and as hard as a cannon-ball.

Mme. Roland had not emptied her glass and was gazing at her son Jean
with sparkling eyes; happiness had brought a colour to her cheeks.

In him, too, the fulness of joy had now blazed out. It was a settled
thing, signed and sealed; he had twenty thousand francs a year. In the
sound of his laugh, in the fuller voice with which he spoke, in his
way of looking at the others, his more positive manners, his greater
confidence, the assurance given by money was at once perceptible.

Dinner was announced, and as the old man was about to offer his arm to
Mme. Rosemilly, his wife exclaimed:

"No, no, father. Everything is for Jean to-day."

Unwonted luxury graced the table. In front of Jean, who sat in his
father's place, an enormous bouquet of flowers--a bouquet for a really
great occasion--stood up like a cupola dressed with flags, and was
flanked by four high dishes, one containing a pyramid of splendid
peaches; the second, a monumental cake gorged with whipped cream and
covered with pinnacles of sugar--a cathedral in confectionery;
the third, slices of pine-apple floating in clear sirup; and the
fourth--unheard-of lavishness--black grapes brought from the warmer
south.

"The devil!" exclaimed Pierre as he sat down. "We are celebrating the
accession of Jean the rich."

After the soup, Madeira was passed round, and already every one was
talking at once. Beausire was giving the history of a dinner he had
eaten at San Domingo at the table of a negro general. Old Roland was
listening, and at the same