e Observator, who watches for
the flowers to come out, and the Curator, who writes appreciative little
notices to stick on the beds; nor the piebald swans in the artificial lake.

But the great glory of Kew is the Pump-room. It is surrounded by
marble-topped tables and green seats, and I am aware that it is not called
a Pump-room, though a noise proceeds from inside it very like the panting
of a pump. They tell me that this is an hydraulic machine for washing up the
cups and plates; but I do not believe them, because so many people who take
tea round the Pump-room drink left-handed, as if the reverse side of the
cup had belonged to somebody else.

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. There
is a strong feeling amongst the waitresses that it is just these compulsory
watercresses which have made us Englishmen what we are. The whole vast
pleasure-ground really centres round them, and the reason why Londoners
flock (as the papers say) to Kew is that they are hungry for the medicinal
virtues of this aquaceous plant.

After you have taken the watercresses you are allowed to wander about the
Gardens again and look at QUEEN VICTORIA'S cottage, round which there is
always an eager and admiring crowd examining it from every point of view
and wondering what premium they would have to pay for it if it were on the
market now. And then you will want to g