which resulted so disastrously. He might be curious enough to want
to discover the "little roadside public-house with two elm trees,
horse-trough and a sign-post in front," where the travellers
attempted to put up the horse. That, however, has not been
discovered, although Dickens no doubt had a particular one in
his mind at the time.

During their stay at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, the Pickwickians
visited Muggleton to witness the cricket match between Dingley
Dell and all Muggleton. "Everybody whose genius has a topographical
bent," says Dickens, "knows perfectly well that Muggleton is a
corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses and freeman," but so far
no topographer has discovered which corporate town it was. Some
say Maidstone, others Town Malling. Until that vexed question
has been settled, however, the identification of the "large inn
with a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art,
but very rarely met with in nature--to wit, a Blue Lion with three
legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the
centre claw of his fourth foot," cannot definitely be verified.
The same remark applies to the Crown Inn, where Jingle stopped
on the same occasion.

[illustration: The Swan Inn, Town Malling. Drawn by C. G. Harper]

At Maidstone there is a "White Lion," and at Town Malling there is
the "Swan." Which of these is the original of the inn where Mr.
Wardle hired a chaise and four to pursue Jingle and Miss Rachael,
and on whose steps, the following Christmas, the Pickwickians, on
their second visit to Dingley Dell, were deposited "high and dry,
safe and sound, hale and hearty," by the Muggleton Telegraph, when