The soup-room on the first floor, to which a flight of narrow little steps ascends, has a calmer atmosphere. Here, in a room with walls the paper of which has been turned to a deep amber tint by the London atmosphere, gentlemen sup, sitting down, their plates of turtle soup or oxtail, and drink their wine with dignified composure. There are tall white wedding cakes under glasses in this room also. The servitors in white aprons are busy in the soup-room, though not quite as busy as downstairs amongst the jam puffs. Up yet another Jacob's ladder of stairs is the ladies' room, which I fancy is used as a chapel of ease for the soup-room, though it is said that rich old widow ladies going quarterly to draw their income from the Bank of England always go into Birch's for a plate of turtle soup and a glass of sherry. Yet one flight of stairs higher is the office of the firm of Messrs Ring and Brymer, who have owned Birch's since 1836. In this room, in old leather-covered books, are wonderful records of hecatombs of baked meats and roasted fowl served at City banquets without end. The two oldest members of the firm have died of late years. These two old gentlemen, Mr Ring and Mr Brymer, who looked like archdeacons in mufti, and had exactly the right dignity for men who provide and control the Lord Mayor's feasts, had both a wonderful memory for banquets that the firm had provided. I happened to mention one day in their presence that a forbear of mine, a banker and brewer, Alderman Newnham, had been Lord Mayor of London, and at once they said that in their books were the details of a feast given by the worthy old gentleman when he was sheriff, and taking down an old volume they showed me how many gallons of turtle soup, the number of sirloins of beef, and the quantity of fair white chickens, orange jellies and plum puddings that the old alderman paid for. It is a very cosy little room in which to lunch, this office of the firm, and the turtle soup, with its great squares of turtle flesh in it, a sole Colbert, a grouse pie, angels on horseback, and a big helping of that wonderful orange jelly, a clouded delicacy that has the flavour of the orange stronger than any other jelly made by any other pastry-cook, and which is a speciality of the house, taste all the better for being eaten in the little room on the walls of which are old Guildhall menus and old pictures of City feasts and portraits of city celebrities, and many letters from the great panjandrums of City companies, giving praise to Messrs Ring and Brymer for the excellence of the banquets supplied by them.