months after the appearance of the first part of Pickwick.

Number 17 is claimed as Mr. Pickwick's room, which is also the one
Dickens occupied on one occasion, and the one spoken of in Seven
Poor Travellers, from which the occupant assured us that after the
cathedral bell struck eight he "could smell the delicious savour of
turkey and roast beef rising to the window of my adjoining room,
which looked down into the yard just where the lights of the kitchen
reddened a massive fragment of the castle wall"

[illustrations: Staircase at the "Bull." Orchestra in Ballroom
at the "Bull"]

An important feature in those days, and presumably to-day, was
the ballroom, "the elegant and commodious assembly rooms to
the Winglebury Arms." In The Pickwick Papers Dickens thus
describes it: "It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches,
and wax candles in glass chandeliers. The musicians were
securely confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being
systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. Two
card tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair
of old ladies and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen were
executing whist therein."

The room itself is little altered; although the glass chandeliers
have been removed, there still remains at the end the veritable
elevated den where the fiddlers fiddled. During the war it was
turned into a dining-room on account of the military and naval
demands of the town; but there may come a time when it will revert
to its old glory and tradition.