But with toasted cheese to follow, the kidney is not a bad substitute, and it brings with it, also, a flavor of Dickens and Thackeray, whose heroes dined frequently on such fare. With the luncheon comes Devonshire cider, another speciality of the house, if you do not care for beer or ale, but beer or cider is served in reproductions of the pewter mugs that Dr. Johnson drank from, and, for a consideration, you can carry one away, wrapped in an odd bag of woven reeds.
The visitors' book at the Cheese makes interesting reading while you wait for your chop, for it is embellished with pen drawings by the famous artists of the world, and enriched with sentiments from poets, novelists, musicians, politicians, capitalists, and others whose names are known on more than one continent.
[Illustration: "YE OLDE CHESHIRE CHEESE, A COFFEE HOUSE BELOVED BY SAMUEL JOHNSON"]
Buszard's on Oxford Street is not as familiar to Americans, but it has an interest of its own, for it has made wedding cakes for royalty for many years, and the models displayed in the show-room form an amusing exhibition to the American who has little idea of what a royal wedding cake should be. There they stand six or seven feet tall and in as many tiers, each ornamented with almond icing, inches thick, and sugar piping, with coats of arms and heraldic devices, and bearing on top a sugar temple surmounted by doves and other hymeneal emblems.
The account of a fashionable wedding in the English society papers usually closes with the line, "Cake by Buszard" or Bolland, for Buszard in London and Bolland in Chester make most of the wedding cakes that are served in England, and they send hundreds of them to the colonies, so that the English bride, even if she be far from home, can have "Cake by Buszard."
And most delectable cake it is, too, and if you wander into the heavily furnished, rather gloomy tea-room at the tea hour, you will find it well filled with city and country people and a sprinkling of foreigners who are partaking of the conventional afternoon refreshment where their grandparents or great grandparents, perhaps, were refreshed. Tea for two shillings allows you to eat all the cake you wish, but unfortunately physical limitations prevent you from trying half of the delicious confections in the tray beside you, the almond pound, Dundee, Maderia simnel, rich currant, muscatel, green ginger, cheese cakes and Scotch short bread, all made from ancient recipes. It is difficult to choose a favorite, although the Scotch short bread never tastes quite the same as it does in one of the popular tea rooms on Princes Street in Edinburgh.