The "Sir John Falstaff" Inn, Gad's Hill.
We have but little time to notice the "Falstaff," for our admiring gaze is presently fixed on Gad's Hill Place itself, the house in which Dickens resided happily—albeit trouble came to him as to most men—from the year 1856 till his death in 1870. Everybody knows the story of how, as a little boy, he cherished the idea of one day living in this house, and how that idea was gratified in after-life. It is from the Uncommercial Traveller, in the chapter on "Travelling Abroad," and the repetition is never stale. He says:—
"So smooth was the old high road, and so fresh were the horses, and so fast went I, that it was midway between Gravesend and Rochester, and the widening river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when I noticed by the wayside a very queer small boy.
"'Holloa!' said I to the very queer small boy, 'where do you live?'
"'At Chatham,' says he.
"'What do you do there?' says I.
"'I go to school,' says he.
"I took him up in a moment, and we went on. Presently, the very queer small boy says, 'This is Gad's Hill we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and ran away.'
"'You know something about Falstaff, eh?' said I.