The fat man, still smoking like a factory chimney, let out the following
words, which completely upset his neighbor:

"It would bother me a lot if they did bite. I don't come here to fish; I
come because I'm very comfortable here; I get shaken up as though I were
at sea. If I take a line along, it's only to do as others do."

Monsieur Patissot, on the other hand, did not feel at all well. His
discomfort, at first vague, kept increasing, and finally took on a
definite form. He felt, indeed, as though he were being tossed by the
sea, and he was suffering from seasickness. After the first attack had
calmed down, he proposed leaving, but Boivin grew so furious that they
almost came to blows. The fat man, moved by pity, rowed the boat back,
and, as soon as Patissot had recovered from his seasickness, they
bethought themselves of luncheon.

Two restaurants presented themselves. One of them, very small, looked
like a beer garden, and was patronized by the poorer fishermen. The other
one, which bore the imposing name of "Linden Cottage," looked like a
middle-class residence and was frequented by the aristocracy of the rod.
The two owners, born enemies, watched each other with hatred across a
large field, which separated them, and where the white house of the dam
keeper and of the inspector of the life-saving department stood out
against the green grass. Moreover, these two officials disagreed, one of
them upholding the beer garden and the other one defending the Elms, and
the internal feuds which arose in these three houses reproduced the whole
history of mankind.

Boivin, who knew the beer garden, wished to go there, exclaiming: "The