Punctual to the appointed hour the traveler returned, but found to his dismay that every seat at the long table was already occupied. The host, however, who appeared to have taken M. Dumas, even at first sight, into his especial favor, approached him with a courteous smile, and, pointing to a small side-table carefully laid out, said: "Here, sir, this is your place. I had not enough of bear-steak left to supply the whole _table d'hôte_ with it; and, besides, most of my guests have tasted this bear already, so I reserved my last steak for you: I was sure you would like it." So saying, the good-natured host placed in the centre of the table a fine, juicy-looking steak, smoking hot, and very tempting in appearance; but glad would the hungry traveler have been could he only have believed that it was a beef, and not a bear-steak, which now lay before him. Visions of the miserable-looking animals he had seen drowsily slumbering away existence in a menagerie, or covered with mud, and led about by a chain, for the amusement of the multitude, presented themselves to the traveler's eyes, and he would fain have turned away from the proffered treat. But he could not find it in his heart to be so ungracious as to express a dislike to food which the host evidently considered as the choicest delicacy the country could afford. He accordingly took his seat at the table, and cut off a small slice of the steak; then screwing his courage to the sticking-point, and opening his mouth wide, as if about to demolish a bolus, he heroically gulped the dreaded morsel. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute._ He had no sooner achieved this feat than he began to think that bear-flesh was, after all, not quite so bad a thing as he had expected. He swallowed a second morsel. "It was really the tenderest and most juicy steak he had ever tasted." "Are you sure this is a bear-steak?" he inquired of the landlord. "Yes, sir, I can assure you it is," replied the good-natured bustling man as he hurried off to attend upon his other guests at the _table-d'hôte_. Before he returned to M. Dumas at the side-table, three-quarters of the steak had disappeared; and, highly gratified at finding his favorite dish was so much approved of, he renewed the conversation by observing: "That was a famous beast, I can tell you; it weighed three hundred and twenty pounds." "A fine fellow indeed he must have been," rejoined the traveler. "It cost no small trouble to kill him." "I can well believe that," rejoined M. Dumas, at the same time raising the last morsel to his mouth. "He devoured half the huntsman who shot him!" added the loquacious landlord. Hastily flinging aside the loathed morsel which he had just placed within his lips, the traveler indignantly exclaimed: "How dare you pass such jokes upon a man when he is in the middle of his dinner?" "I can assure you, sir, I am not joking," replied the landlord: "I am only telling you the simple truth."