verages, among them special Mocha at six and eight cents a cup;
Slater's, Ltd., catering mostly to business folk in the city, there
being about a score of restaurants and tea rooms under this name with
retail shops attached; the British Tea Table Association, like Slater's,
a grown-up sister of the olden bun shop of Queen Victoria's day; and the
Kardomah chain of cafes, where one is reasonably sure to get a
satisfying cup of coffee and a cake.

[Illustration: GATTI'S, IN THE STRAND, LONDON]

[Illustration: TEA LOUNGE OF HOTEL SAVOY, LONDON]

Supplementing the above, Charles Cooper, some time editor of the
_Epicure_ and _The Table_, has prepared for this work some notes on the
evolution of the old-time London coffee houses into the present-day tea
rooms, tea lounges, cafes, and restaurants for all comers. Mr. Cooper
says of the transformation:

The old-fashioned London coffee-house that flourished forty to
fifty years ago has within the past thirty years been completely
extinguished by the modern tea rooms. These old-fashioned
establishments were mainly situated in and about the Strand and
Fleet Street, the neighborhood of the Inns of Court, etc. They did
not sacrifice much to outside show and decoration. They were
divided into boxes or pews, and were generally speaking clean and
well ordered; the prices were moderate, and the fare simple but
superlatively good. There is nothing to equal it now. Chops were
cooked in the grill. The tea and coffee were of the best; the hams
were York hams and the bacon the best Wiltshire; they were the last
places where real buttered toast was made. The art is now lost.
They catered exclusively to men; and their clientele consisted of
journalists, artists, actors, men from the Inns of Court, students,
_et al._ A man living in chambers could breakfast comfortably at
one of these places, and read all the morning papers at his ease.
The most westerly perhaps of the old houses was Stone's in Panton
Street, Haymarket, which has recently been sold. Groom's in Fleet
Street, where a good cup of coffee may still be had, is principally
frequented by barristers about the luncheon hour. They are usually
men who lunch lightly.

The tea rooms, as I have said, have killed the coffee houses. At
the time the latter flourished, there were no facilities in London
for a woman, unattende