It is true that you may buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in London; so also may you buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in any American city, but the reasonably affluent American doesn't buy ten-dollar suits at home. He saves himself up to indulge in that form of idiocy abroad. In Paris or Rome you may get a five-course dinner with wine for forty cents; so you may in certain quarters of New York; but in either place the man who can afford to pay more for his dinner will find it to his ultimate well-being to do so. Simply because a boarding house in France or Italy is known as a pension doesn't keep it from being a boarding house--and a pretty average bad one, as I have been informed by misguided Americans who tried living at a pension, and afterwards put in a good deal of their spare time regretting it. Altogether, looking back on my own experiences, I can at this time of writing think of but two common commodities which, when grade is taken into the equation, are found to be radically cheaper in Europe than in America--these two things being taxicabs and counts. For their cleanliness and smartness of aspect, and their reasonableness of meter-fare, taxicabs all over Europe are a constant joy to the traveling American. And, though in the United States counts are so costly that only the marriageable daughters of the very wealthy may afford to buy them--and even then, as the count calendars attest, have the utmost difficulty in keeping them after they are bought--in Continental Europe anywhere one may for a moderate price hire a true-born count to do almost any small job, from guiding one through an art gallery to waiting on one at the table. Counts make indifferent guides, but are middling fair waiters. Outside of the counts and the taxicabs, and the food in Germany, I found in all Europe just one real overpowering bargain--and that was in Naples, where, as a general thing, bargains are not what they seem. For the exceedingly moderate outlay of one lira--Italian--or twenty cents--American--I secured this combination, to wit, as follows: In the background old Vesuvius, like a wicked, fallen angel, wearing his plumy, fumy halo of sulphurous hell-smoke; in the middle distance the Bay of Naples, each larcenous wave-crest in it triple-plated with silvern glory pilfered from a splendid moon; on the left the riding lights of a visiting squadron of American warships; on the right the myriad slanted sails of the coral-fishers' boats, beating out toward Capri, with the curlew-calls of the fishermen floating back in shrill snatches to meet a jangle of bell and bugle from the fleet; in the immediate foreground a competent and accomplished family troupe of six Neapolitan troubadours--men, women and children--some of them playing guitars and all six of them, with fine mellow voices and tremendous dramatic effect, singing--the words being Italian but the air good American--John Brown's Body Lies a-Moldering in the Grave!