"Whew!" cried Don Giovanni when, arriving at the capital of this country, he was made to undergo these initiatory steps, "will you please to tell me one single particular in which travel in Europe is not incomparably more agreeable and comfortable than in this country?" And he went on to compare the universal comfort and courtesy of foreign travel, sadly to the disadvantage of the home of the brave. "Certainly there is no country in which the guest upon reaching his hotel is treated with such laughable condescension as in this. A wretched hole of a room, shabbily furnished, the dirty walls and a suspicious bed, with a quart of water and a pocket-handkerchief of a towel, for which he is to pay four or five dollars or more daily, is awarded to the humbly expectant visitor as a high favor. A great American hotel is a penitentiary for travellers, and the gentlemen at the office are the lofty turnkeys and lord high-constables. A self-respecting man will travel here as little as possible." "There is no doubt that much travel at home is a discipline," replied the Easy Chair. "Yes," continued the indignant Don. "If you are known personally to the gentlemanly gentleman who dispenses chambers you may be tolerably quartered. But if you are merely one of the herd who have the temerity to arrive by steamer or car, you may thank your stars if you are graciously permitted to leave your luggage in the hall and to have a room by-and-by." Now the Easy Chair humbly hopes that all gentlemanly gentlemen concerned will not understand him as making these remarks. They all proceeded from the person named, who is alone responsible. The Easy Chair has not quite come to the end of his travels; and would he malign the gentlemanly and accommodating? He desires to state distinctly that if he could not open the window of his room, it was merely because he had a foolish wish for fresh air; and if he could not turn round, it was because of the inordinate size of his trunk; and if his fingers went through the towel, it was because his manner was rude towards a chamber ornament so delicate and small; and if the sheets of the bed were not wholly fresh, it was because the gentlemanly and accomplished chamber-maiden lady was of a nobly economical turn of mind; and if the bell would not ring, it was because some former guest had been so little able to restrain himself as to pull it down. Indeed, there was nothing which did not admit of the fullest explanation. It is only the unreasonable who would complain of paying four or five dollars a day for such accommodations. "Let me tell you, sir," whispered the gentlemanly gentleman at a certain office to a bewildered person who had been ordered up to a burrow in the seventh story, "you are very lucky to get in at all." But the bewildered traveller's face, it is asserted, was not so humbly grateful as circumstances demanded.