No inn could have possessed a greater curiosity than grotesque Tom Crudd, who for many years was “Boots” at the “Unicorn,” and by his sheer physical peculiarities has achieved a kind of eccentric fame. “Old Boots,” as he was familiarly known by many who never learned his real name, flourished from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, and lies, now that all his boot-cleaning is done, somewhere in the Minster yard. This extraordinary person was endowed by nature with a nose and chin so enormously long, and so lovingly tending to embrace one another, that at length he acquired the power of holding a piece of money between them, and so turned his deformity to practical and commercial account. It was a part of his duty to wait upon travellers arriving at the inn, to assist them in taking off their boots. He usually introduced himself, as in the picture, with a pair of slippers in one hand, and a boot-jack in the other, and we are told that the company were generally so diverted by his appearance that they would frequently give him a piece of money, on condition that he held it between his nose and chin. Other times, other tastes in amusement, and it is scarce possible that modern travellers would relish such an exhibition, even if provided gratis. The “Castle Hotel” at Conway has an interesting and historic object, in the shape of an authentic contemporary portrait of Dame Joan Penderel, mother of the Penderel brothers of Boscobel, who secreted Charles the Second in the “Royal Oak.” It came to the hotel as a bequest to the landlord, from a friend who in his turn had received it from a man who had bought it among a number of household odds and ends belonging to two old maiden ladies of Broseley, connections of the Penderel family. It was then, to all appearance, nothing more than a dirty old stretched canvas that had long been used as “blower” to a kitchen fire; but, on being cleaned, was found to be a portrait of a woman wearing an old-fashioned steeple-crowned hat, and holding in her hand a rose. The portrait would never have been identified, but fortunately it was inscribed “Dame Pendrell, 1662.” [Illustration: THE “RED LION,” CHISWICK.]