It was on a window in this old inn that Shenstone the poet scratched with a diamond about 1750 that celebrated stanza of his: Who'er has travelled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think how oft he found The warmest welcome at an inn; --at least, so tradition has it. But Mr. Charles G. Harper thinks it doubtful, and feels that the Henley referred to by historians must have been Henley-in-Arden. There is one inn mentioned in the book which has not, that we are aware of, been identified. It is the Exchequer Coffee-House, Palace Yard, Westminster, the address given by Mr. Julius Handford to Mr. Inspector on the occasion when he viewed the body of the drowned man (Bk. 1, Chapter III). CHAPTER XIII THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD AND THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES WOOD'S HOTEL, FURNIVAL'S INN--THE TILTED WAGON--THE TRAVELLERS' TWOPENNY--THE CROZIER, CLOISTERHAM--THE KING'S ARMS, LANCASTER--THE SHIP, ALLONBY--THE ANGEL, DONCASTER, AND OTHERS It is a curious fact that Wood's Hotel, one of London's old-time inns which must have been familiar to Dickens in his very early days--even before he commenced writing his _Pickwick Papers_--did not furnish a scene in any of his books until it figured in _Edwin Drood_, his last. As early as 1834, when on the staff of the "Morning Chronicle," Dickens lived at 13 Furnival's Inn, and in the following year moved to No 15, where he commenced _The Pickwick Papers_, and where he took to himself a wife and where his first child was born. During these days Wood's Hotel occupied the north side of the quiet quadrangle of Furnival's Inn, and Dickens must have known it well. It was a staid and respectable house with an air about it of domestic comfort, suitable for country visitors, and where, we are informed, family prayers, night and morning, were included in the accommodation. Its stately building of four stories had dignity added to it by the four tall white stone pillars in the centre portion of the front reaching to the third floor. Although stolid-looking, it was not aggressively so, nor was it altogether unpicturesque, with its grass plot immediately before the entrance, encircling a statue of the founder of the inn, surrounded by white posts connected by chains. Its imposing appearance from without reflected the comforts which the inside of a reputable family hotel is expected to provide. At such an hotel one would naturally look for courteous attention from waiters and chambermaids, and good meals cleanly served, and at Wood's no disappointment in these respects was experienced. Indeed, Dickens conveys that idea in referring to it in _Edwin Drood_. Entering through the archway of Furnival's Inn, the hotel caught the eye immediately, and acted as a relief to the straight, angular, and flat appearance of the buildings which formed the once famous quadrangle so intimately associated with Dickens.