l,' says he.

"I took him up in a moment, and we went on. Presently, the very
queer small boy says, 'This is Gadshill we are coming to, where
Falstaff went out to rob those travellers and ran away.'

"'You know something about Falstaff, eh?' said I.

"'All about him,' said the very queer small boy. 'I am old (I am
nine), and I read all sorts of books. But do let us stop at the top
of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!'

"'You admire that house?' said I.

[Illustration: GADSHILL PLACE FROM THE GARDENS]

"'Bless you, sir,' said the very queer small boy, 'when I was not
more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be
brought to look at it. And now I am nine I come by myself to look
at it. And ever since I can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond
of it, has often said to me, If you were to be very persevering,
and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it.
Though that's impossible!' said the very queer small boy, drawing a
low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his
might.

"I was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy;
for that house happens to be _my_ house, and I have reason to
believe that what he said was true."

As the queer small boy in the _Uncommercial Traveller_ said, Gadshill
Place is at the very top of Falstaff's hill. It stands on the south side
of the Dover road;--on the north side, but a little lower down, is "a
delightfully oldfashioned inn of the old coaching days", the "Sir John
Falstaff";--surrounded by a high wall and screened by a row of limes.
The front view, with its wooden and pillared porch, its bays, its dormer
windows let into the roof, and its surmounting bell turret and vane,
bears much the same appearance as it did to the queer small boy. But
amongst the many additions and alterations which Dickens was constantly
making, the drawing-room had been enlarged from a smaller existing one,
and the conservatory into which it opens was, as he laughingly told his
younger daughter, "positively the last improvement at Gadshill"--a jest
to prove sadly prophetic, for it was uttered on the Sunday before his
death. The little library, too, on the opposite side of the porch from
the drawing-room and conservatory, was a converted bedroom. Its aspect
is familiar to most Dickens-lovers from Sir Luke Fildes's fa