On the evening of the Pickwickians' arrival Jingle remarks that
there is a "Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter. Forms
going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, glasses, harps. What's
going forward?"

"Ball, sir," said the waiter.

"Assembly, eh?"

"No, sir, not assembly, sir. Ball for the benefit of charity, sir."

This was the famous ball at which the incident occurred resulting in
the challenge to a duel between Dr. Slammer and Winkle, the details
of which require no reiteration here.

But the pleasant fact remains that the Bull Inn exists to-day and the
Dickens tradition clings to it still. One instinctively goes there
as the centre of the Dickensian atmosphere with which the old city
of Rochester is permeated.

The Bull Inn should never lose its fame. Indeed, as long as it
lasts it never will, because Pickwick can never be forgotten. The
present-day traveller will go by rail, or some day by an aerial
'bus, and may forget the old days during his journey; but when he
arrives there and walks into the inn yard, whole visions of the
coaching days will come back to him, and prominent amongst them will
be the arrival of the "Commodore" coach with the Pickwickians on
board, and the departure of the chaise with the same company with
Winkle struggling with the tall mare, on their way to Dingley Dell,