There are many colleges in Oxford, but at no one of them is the tourist supposed to find refreshment in the dining halls, so that it was something of a triumph to be given a tart in one of the quaint old kitchens. The tart was really a tribute to an interest in the pantry shelves which were filled with pastry, and in the explanatory list that hung beside them. Tarts have been made in the same fashion at this Oxford college for several hundred years, in order, the cook explained, with a twinkle in his eye, that the students might get what they wanted, when they slipped down on a night tart raid. It is the nick in the edge that has told generations of students the contents of the tart; an apple has only one nick, a mince has two at each end, a gooseberry three, and so on until a student who has learned the rule can choose his favorite in the dark.
Winchester, the old royal city of England, has so many places of interest, the cathedral, the famous Winchester school, the castle, in which hangs King Arthur's round table as it has hung for several hundred years, that the traveler who is there but for a day may not have time to share the wayfarer's dole at St. Cross hospital which is distributed today just as Bishop Henry de Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror, arranged almost eight hundred years ago. This wayfarer's dole consists of a horn of ale and piece of white bread, and anyone who knocks at the hatchway of the porter's gate is entitled to receive it. About thirty wayfarers are given it daily as well as many notable people and curious travelers who knock at the door for the novelty of sharing in a picturesque survival of a mediæval charity. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of his experience, "Just before entering Winchester we stopped at the Church of St. Cross, and after looking through the quaint antiquity we demanded a piece of bread and a draught of ale, which the founder, Henry de Blois, in 1136, commanded should be given to everyone who should ask it at the gate. We had both from the old couple who take care of the church."
When you are in Paris you must not forget Rumpelmeyer, the "king of pastry makers." His shop is unpretentious, considering his vogue, and the room is all too small on a pleasant afternoon for the throng which would invade it. There are representatives from the far corners of the world. Americans are all about you; at the next table is a Russian grand duchess, perhaps, with her cavaliers; nearer the wall sits a woman from the Orient, whose soft silk draperies are in strange contrast to the modish Parisiennes; a group of children chatter of South Africa to their attendants and two natives from India have not doffed their spotless white turbans.