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CHAPTER I

"GEORGE INN," WHERE MR. PICKWICK FIRST MET SAM WELLER

"SAMI

"Halloo,' replied the man with the

white hat.

"Number twenty-two wants his boots.' "Ask number twenty-two, vether he'll have 'em now, or vait till he gets 'em,' was the reply.

"Come, don't be a fool, Sam,' said the girl, coaxingly, 'the gentleman wants his boots directly.'

"Well, you are a nice young 'ooman for a musical party, you are,' said the boot-cleaner. 'Look at these here boots-eleven pair o' boots; and one shoe as b'longs to number six, with the wooden leg. The eleven boots is to be called at half-past eight and the shoe at nine. Who's number twenty-two, that's to put all the others out? No, no; reg'lar rotation, as Jack Ketch said, ven he tied the men up. Sorry to keep you a-waitin', Sir, but I'll attend to you directly.'

"Saying which, the man in the white hat set to work upon a top-boot with increased assiduity.

"There was another loud ring; and the bustling old landlady of the White Hart made her appearance in the opposite gallery.

"Sam,' cried the landlady, 'where's that lazy, idle-why Sam-oh, there you are; why don't you answer?'

"Vouldn't be gen-teel to answer, 'till you'd done talking,' replied Sam, gruffly.

"Here, clean them shoes for number seventeen directly, and take 'em to private sittingroom, number five, first floor.'

"The landlady flung a pair of lady's shoes into the yard, and bustled away.

"Number 5,' said Sam, as he picked up the shoes, and taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, made a memorandum of their destination on the soles - 'Lady's shoes and private sittin' room! I suppose she didn't come in the vaggin.'

"She came in early this morning,' cried the girl, who was still leaning over the railing of the gallery, 'with a gentleman in a hackney-coach, and it's him as wants his boots, and you'd better do 'em, and that's all about it.'

"Vy didn't you say so before?' said Sam,

with great indignation, singling out the boots in question from the heap before him. 'For all I know'd he vas one o' the regular three-pennies. Private room! and a lady, too! If he's anything of a gen'lm'n, he's vurth a shillin' a day, let alone the arrands."

No smart young chambermaid called to me from over the balustrade of the upper sleeping gallery when I alighted from a hansom in the courtyard of this same inn, known then and now as "George Inn," and gazed about me this morning in June nor did any bustling old landlady make her appearance on the opposite gallery.

There was a maid, of course, who might, and possibly did, cajole all the subsequent Sam Wellers of her time; and there was a landladya most cheery and comforting landlady, as I afterward discovered - who on hearing the sound of wheels peered at me through the quaint panes of a low-sashed window, her hand busy with a pewter mug held close to a wooden spigot; and there was the usual collection of thirsty men lounging outside the tap-room door, awaiting their turns all charming and delightful reminders of what could have been found in this same old hostelry when gigs and

chaise-carts were wheeled up in the courtyard, and boys in smock frocks lay asleep on the straw, but not entirely convincing to a man who had crossed three thousand miles of water to make real a dream of his boyhood.

What did interest me - interest me enormously was the hostelry itself - particularly that part of the sleeping gallery from which the musical chambermaid shouted to the boot cleaner in the sleeve waistcoat with blueglass buttons. But for a coat of paint applied every twenty years or so, and the bracing up of a snaggle-toothed balustrade, it is precisely as Mr. Dickens saw and described it seventy-five years ago in his immortal "Pickwick." "There are in London," he says, "several old inns, once the headquarters of Celebrated Coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in a graver and more solemn manner than they do in these times." Whereupon he gave to a listening and uproarious world and they are still laughing over it — a full and unabridged account of the scene with which this chapter opens.

And a wonderful old inn it is even now, its front in two connecting sections - each bracing the other, their shoulders touching. Seen from one end, in foreshortened perspective, it pre

sents a continuous wabble from sill to eaves, its roof-line sagging, its chimney out of plumb, the shorter flues climbing up on the taller ones as if struggling for better air, the wonder being that it had not long ago lost all heart, and sunk into hopeless ruin. Looked at close by, however, say from beneath the chambermaid's gallery, it resolves itself to your glad surprise into quite another kind of rookery, putting to flight all your first conclusions; the same sort of surprise that comes to a man who, having made up his mind to ignore some approaching shabby person, finds himself bowing and scraping when he gets near enough to look into the kindly eyes and reassuring face of the misjudged individual.

It did not take me many minutes to change my own opinion of "George Inn."

Here was a welcome, inviting door, though its top sill was so low that off would go your hat if you forgot to stoop politely when you crossed its threshold, while the cosy little hall was so narrow that a trunk must go endways before it could reach the stairs that led to the bedrooms above. Here within a few feet of the door was a jolly little snuggery, made bright with pewter and glass and inviting easy chairs - one or two; a table, and a barmaid- the whole red