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<1Chapter 1>1

IN the year 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest,
at a distance of about twelve miles from London -- measuring from
the Standard in Cornhill, or rather from the spot on or near to
which the Standard used to he in days of yore -- a house of public
entertainment called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated
to all such travellers as could neither read nor write (and at that
time a vast number both of travellers and stay-at-homes were in
this condition) by the emblem reared on the roadside over against
the house, which, if not of those goodly proportions that Maypoles
were wont to present in olden times, was a fair young ash, thirty
feet in height, and straight as any arrow that ever English yeoman
drew.
  The Maypole -- by which term from henceforth is meant the
house, and not its sign -- the Maypole was an old building, with
more gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny
day; huge zig-zag chimneys, out of which i . . .