Anyhow it is a very jolly and democratic assemblage that sits and drinks
tea under the trees and eats cakes that have no placard on them to say at
what date they were introduced into England. Here you may see the
prosperous docker with his wife and family sitting quite unostentatiously
at the next table to the needy scientist who has come to make notes about
the purple narcissi. And a little further on is the novelist who is getting
local colour for his great rustic love-scene which he is going to say took
place in the heart of Devonshire.
But it was not for the purpose of providing you with tea and cakes that the
Pump-room was founded. Just as you may read in your morning paper that the
Honourable Miss Muffet has proceeded to Harrogate to take the waters, so it
is with Kew. One goes to Kew to take the watercresses. I have found out by
exhaustive inquiries from one of the waitresses that, though you may
substitute rolls and butter for bread and margarine, and may have marmalade
with either or both, and though it is optional to eat even the cakes with
yellow sugar upon them, there is no way of evading the watercresses.
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