CHAPTER XXIV.
An Inn of Times gone by--A First-rate Publican--Hay and Corn--Old-fashioned Ostler--Highwaymen--Mounted Police--Grooming.
The inn, of which I had become an inhabitant, was a place of infinite life and bustle.

Travellers of all descriptions, from all the cardinal points, were continually stopping at it; and to attend to their wants, and minister to their convenience, an army of servants, of one description or other, was kept; waiters, chambermaids, grooms, postillions, shoe-blacks, cooks, scullions, and what not, for there was a barber and hair-dresser, who had been at Paris, and talked French with a cockney accent; the French sounding all the better, as no accent is so melodious as the cockney.

Jacks creaked in the kitchens turning round spits, on which large joints of meat piped and smoked before great big fires.

There was running up and down stairs, and along galleries, slamming of doors, cries of "Coming, sir," and "Please to step this way, ma'am," during eighteen hours of the four-and-twenty.

Truly a very great place for life and bustle was this inn.