Each room has its key and corresponding number, and the visitor is expected, upon leaving his chamber, to lock his door, and hang the key upon the key–board which is under charge of the _concierge_ at the entrance to the hotel. In very large hotels, there is a key–board for each floor, in charge of an attendant. So contrary is this system of locking doors to the habits of the English, that it is often neglected by them; so much so, that in hotels exclusively frequented by natives of our isle, such a thing as locking doors and bringing down keys would be looked upon as extraordinary. At one of these hotels, I asked a servant, upon leaving my room after arrival, where the key should be put, as I had seen no key–board. ‘Oh, just leave it in the door,’ was her reply. Foreigners always lock their doors, whatever may be the establishment in which they are; and in many places, especially in the large hotels of Paris, where nobody knows who may be his next neighbour, it is highly proper and safe to do so. In this connection I may just observe that somehow or other there are in most places hotels which are only patronized by the English, and a foreigner is a _rara avis_. Correspondingly, there are other hotels which they never visit. There must be some species of intuitive freemasonry which underlies and conduces to this result. * * * * * All hotels have a public _salle à manger_, to which both ladies and gentlemen are expected to go, and nearly all have drawing–rooms or reading–rooms, or both (_salons_ and _salons–de–lecture_). A lady travelling by herself can freely go to all these rooms, and one constantly meets such _dames seules_. No necessity is imposed upon them to engage a _salon_ or sitting–room. But if desirous of taking them out of the public rooms, the meals will be sent to the bedrooms, for which luxury and extra trouble, however, there is a charge made, sometimes as high, at least for dinner, as 2 francs or 3 francs per person per meal, though usually only ½ franc. In addition to placing in the reading–rooms newspapers, which generally comprise one or more of the leading London journals (received in many places within twenty–four hours of their publication), there usually and most properly is in hotels, where visitors come for lengthened periods, a small collection of books sufficient to beguile an hour or a wet day. * * * * * The three chief meals of the day are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.