not only ease was sought and expected, but obtained; Pickwick is
packed with them.

The outside appearance of an inn alone was in those times so well
considered that it addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller
"as a home of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but
significant assurances of a comfortable welcome." Its very signboard
promised good cheer and meant it; the attractive furnishing of the
homely windows, the bright flowers on the sills seemed to beckon one
to "come in"; and when one did enter, one was greeted and cared for as
a guest and not merely as a customer.

We all know, as Dickens has reminded us elsewhere, the great station
hotel, belonging to the company of proprietors which has suddenly
sprung up in any place we like to name, ". . . in which we can get
anything we want, after its kind, for money; but where nobody is glad
to see us, or sorry to see us, or minds (our bill paid) whether we come
or go, or how, or when, or why, or cares about us . . . where we have
no individuality, but put ourselves into the general post, as it were,
and are sorted and disposed of according to our division." That is
more the modern method and is in direct contrast to the old coaching
method, which, alas! may never return, of which the inns in Pickwick
furnish us with glowing examples.

We certainly are coming back to these roadside inns in the present
age of rapid motor transit; yet we are in too much of a tearing
hurry to make the same use of the old inns as they did in the more
leisurely age.

We believe these old inns attract to-day not only because of their