"'But why?'
"'Because I only came to your cookshop to taste bear. As I find you haven't any, I am going to look for it elsewhere.'
"'Still, monsieur ...'
"'Come, furth! and out the traveller went, saying, 'It seems you show special favour to M. Alexandre Dumas; but it also seems to me that a traveller in Burgundy wines is worth much more attention than a man of letters.'
"The inn-keeper stands dumbfounded.
"Now, you know, my dear fellow, that blessed Impressions de Voyage has been widely read, printed and reprinted: not a day passed but some eccentric traveller would ask for a bear-steak. French and English appear to have gone to the Hôtel de la Poste to drive the unlucky inn-keeper to distraction. Never was Pipelet, when he refuses to give his hair to Cabrion, to Cabrion's friends and acquaintances, more unhappy, tormented or desperate than the unhappy, tormented and desperate maître de poste of Martigny. A French inn-keeper would have taken the bull by the horns and changed his signboard; instead of the words Hôtel de la Poste, he would have put, Hôtel du Bifteck d'Ours. He would have bought up all the bears in the surrounding mountains; and, when they fell short, he would have provided beef, wild boar, horse, anything, so long as it was flavoured with some unknown sauce or other. He would have made his fortune in three years' time and retired at the end of it, buying his stocks to the extent of 100,000 francs, and he would have blessed my name. The present man made his fortune all the same, but more slowly, and through such incessant fits of anger that he ruined his health—and cursed my name.
"What harm has that done you?"
"It is always disagreeable to be cursed, my friend."
"But, after all, what truth is there in your bear-steak story?"