Alas! in America interviewing is quite a common-place affair, and it gives no _éclat_ to be interviewed. People sat smoking in the hall as I passed, utterly unconscious of the fact. Yet the reporters did their best. One of them called after I was gone to bed. He said he was not going to be scooped out by the other fellow, whatever that may mean. Virtue in his case was not rewarded. I kept to my bed, and left the enterprising reporter to do the best he could. I ought to say a word of the hotel at which I stopped—the Lawrence Hall, in James’s Street—which I strongly recommend to all, especially to such of my friends as may be contemplating a visit to Montreal. The bedrooms are beautifully clean, the cooking is excellent, and the service is admirable. It enjoys a tremendous amount of support. I was there just forty-eight hours, and I counted as many as two hundred names of arrivals after me, and yet, in spite of the crowd, there was ample accommodation for all, and I and my friends dined as comfortably and quietly as if we had been at home. The proprietor, Mr. Hogan, is a gentleman with whom it is a pleasure to converse. Nor are his charges high. It is a sight to sit in the hall and watch the ever-shifting crowd, or to stray into the shaving apartment, where a dozen barbers are always hard at work. I own I became a victim, and paid a shilling for a performance which in London only costs me sixpence; but in London I simply have my hair cut, here I was under the care of a ‘professional artist.’ I quote his card: ‘Physiognomical hairdresser, facial operator, cranium manipulator, and capillary abridger.’ I could not think of offering so distinguished a professor less than a shilling. But the fact is, you can’t travel cheaply either in Canada or the United States. It goes sadly against the grain to pay fivepence for having one’s boots blacked, and the way in which your change is doled out to you is not pleasant, and adds materially to the difficulties of the situation. For instance, I had a certain American coin the other day pressed into my reluctant hands on the express understanding that it was to go for ten cents. I paid it to a ferryman, who said it was only worth eight, and then, on that supposition, he managed to cheat me; and I had to appeal to a friend of mine, who told me that I had not the right change, before I could get the man to give me my due; directly, however, the mistake was pointed out he rectified it, thus acknowledging, in the most barefaced manner, his attempt to cheat; and the beauty of it was, I was with a great man of the place, who witnessed the whole transaction, and never said a word, apparently looking upon it as a matter of course.