Town Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the

Great White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue

of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly

resembling an insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal

door. The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the

same degree as a prize ox, or a county-paper-chronicled turnip, or

unwieldy pig - for its enormous size. Never was such labyrinths of

uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such

huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one

roof, as are collected together between the four walls of the Great

White Horse at Ipswich. It was at the door of this overgrown tavern

that the London coach stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it

was from this same London coach that Mr Pickwick, Sam Weller, and

Mr Peter Magnus dismounted, on the particular evening to which this

chapter of our history bears reference.

Do you stop here, sir?' inquired Mr Peter Magnus, when the striped

bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper parcel, and the leather

hat-box, had all been deposited in the passage. 'Do you stop here, sir?'

'I do,' said Mr Pickwick.

Dear me,' said Mr Magnus, 'I never knew anything like these

extraordinary coincidences. Why, I stop here too. I hope we dine

together?'

With pleasure,' replied Mr Pickwick. 'I am not quite certain whether I

have any friends here or not, though. Is there any gentleman of the

name of Tupman here, waiter?'

A corpulent man, with a fortnight's napkin under his arm, and coeval

stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring

down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr Pickwick;

and, after minutely inspecting that gentleman's appearance, from the

crown of his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied

emphatically -

No!'

Nor any gentleman of the name of Snodgrass?' inquired Mr Pickwick.

No!'

Nor Winkle?'

No!'

My friends have not arrived to-day, Sir,' said Mr Pickwick. 'We will

dine alone, then. Show us a private room, waiter.'

The Pickwick Papers