Under the pension system no tea is given in the evening. After dinner, some go to their bedrooms, others to the drawing-room, for the sake of music or conversation, or to look over a few old newspapers, for want of anything better to do. The drawing-room is usually styled a _salon de lecture_, because it is presumedly a reading-room. A tattered _Galignani_, a week old, lying on the table, will constitute the room a salon de lecture. This mode of living in public may be amusing to those who do not object to racket and noisy talk in several languages. My own experiences have not been very successful, particularly as regards the drawing-rooms or sham salons de lecture, where usually some young lady, with long hair hanging down her back, has, by her frantic performances on the piano, banished everything like quietude and comfort. What with one charge or another, the cost of living _en pension_ at Mentone is rarely under a hundred francs, or four pounds, for each person per week. In very many cases it will amount to five pounds. Preferring to occupy a private salon, I submitted to a higher charge. Last season, I procured a salon and two bedrooms on the first floor at a hotel overlooking the Promenade at a charge of 105 francs, and for meals served privately 119 francs, for two persons per week. A charge of 10½ francs was made for service. Wine, fuel, and lights were paid for in addition. The sum-total was usually about 267 francs, or £10, 14s. per week. These charges were lower than I had paid the previous year at another hotel, but I do not scruple to say they were exorbitant, for the _logement_ and _nourriture_ were not worth the money. Like all, however, who capriciously depart from the plan of eating and drinking in a crowd according to the routine of the establishment, I ought not perhaps to complain. The table-d’hôte system is unquestionably the cheapest, and also the best as regards variety of dishes, wherefore comparatively few attempt the method of taking meals in their own apartment.