following chapter.




CHAPTER X

THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE," IPSWICH



"In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a
short distance after you have passed through the open space fronting
the 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."

With these identical words Dickens introduces his readers to, and
indicates precisely, the position of the famous Great White Horse
Inn at Ipswich, and a visitor to the popular city of Suffolk need
have no better guide to the spot than the novelist. He will be a
little surprised at the description of the white horse, which in
reality is quite an unoffending and respectable animal, in the act
of simply lifting its fore leg in a trotting action, that is all;
but he will be well repaid if when he arrives there he reads again
Chapter XXII of The Pickwick Papers before he starts to make himself
acquainted with the intricacies of the interior.