For the very queerest adaptation by a local builder of the style in vogue during the Greek revival, a visit must be paid to the _Lisle Castle_, on the Dover Road, about three miles beyond Gravesend. [Illustration: The Noah’s Ark, Lurgashall] Old wayside inns, as a rule, have few architectural pretensions; good sound proportion, breadth of roof, bold chimney breasts, and age together suffice to make them attractive and dignified. Internally the tap-rooms are often panelled, and the ceilings crossed by many smoke-stained beams; with here and there a welcome chimney-corner. Ingle-nooks and chimney-corners are still fairly numerous even in the home counties. Surrey can boast of a good half-dozen; _The Plough_ at Smallfield, near Red Hill, the _Crown_ at Chiddingfold, the _White Lion_ at Warlingham, may be given as instances--while there are more than one in that fine old Elizabethan inn, the _Clayton Arms_, formerly the _White Hart_ at Godstone. Leaves Green and Groombridge own two out of the many scattered about Kent. In Sussex they are too common to require special notice. CHAPTER XV THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER The genuine traveller is really the man who is on business. Even the tourist can scarcely lay confident claim to the title. Is he not on pleasure bent? Is he not going from place to place merely for the fun of the thing? Is he not really a stay-at-home who has ventured out merely to stretch his legs? Ask the keeper of a commercial hotel in a country town who his customers are. He will tell you that they are commercial _travellers_ and coffee-room _visitors_. The two classes are distinct in the mind of mine host. One suggests work, the other play. The commercial man is bound to travel whether he likes it or not, the visitor is a fitful amateur amusing himself by a change from the monotony of home. Whoso looks upon the commercial traveller as a modern production created by the railway system should listen to the explosion of wrath from an old hand on the road, who has had time and inclination to examine into the history of commerce. “What, no traditions!” he will exclaim. “Permit me to call your attention once more, my friend, to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who was he, I should like to know, but a commercial traveller? Everything points to it. He was travelling in oil and wine, why else should he have had them with him? Notice his influence with the host of the inn. He was evidently known there. He could give instructions and had enough ready money to leave two denarii on his departure, with a reminder that he would be coming again later on. Then, again, his broad-minded sympathy, he was certainly no sectarian. Commercial travellers rarely are. Their calling teaches them to be friendly to all sorts and conditions of men. No traditions? History is full of incidents which show that the man who travels with samples is as old as the hills.”