The famous Star and Garter inn is, fortunately, still standing hard by the Point or Floating Bridge. Here, in the cosy bar parlour, which seems redolent of other days, one can sit and smoke at the same table round which Nelson, Howe, Rodney, and other “old sea dogs,” used to foregather, gossiping, possibly discussing plans of campaign, and smoking old-time churchwardens, which had the great advantage of smoking cool and keeping the smoke out of their eyes. Among the many other famous visitors of the past were Louis Philippe on his flight into exile, Sir John Franklin and King William the Fourth, “the Sailor King,” who when Prince of Wales often occupied a bedroom which is still shown. In the coffee room is a curious survival, a huge cupboard, or secret chamber, measuring about 10 ft. by 6 ft. There is nowadays no door to this room, which tradition asserts was a hiding-place from the pressgang, or possibly (which seems even more likely) was a “hole” used by smugglers. The Star and Garter remains a fine relic of old Portsmouth, and one of the most interesting survivals of former days. There are, however, not a few others which space will not allow our mentioning in detail, amongst them Lord Howe’s house in Highbury Street and the little shop of John Pounds, the originator of the Ragged Schools; but at least a little more than a passing mention is claimed by the birthplace of Charles Dickens in Commercial Road. The future novelist, however, did not live here long, as his father, a Pay Clerk in the Navy, was thrown out of employment at the time of a wholesale reduction of the staff. In consequence the family, fallen upon evil times, removed first to Chatham and then to London, where, as all the world knows, Charles earned a few shillings a week by pasting labels on blacking bottles.