On the other hand, there was nothing visionary about Garraway's. "Garraway's, twelve o'clock. 'Dear Mrs. B., Chops and Tomato Sauce, Yours, Pickwick,'" not only implicated Mr. Pickwick, but conjured up an old and historic coffee house of city fame. It stood in Exchange Alley, and was a noted meeting-place for city men, and for its sales and auctions. It was demolished some fifty years ago after an existence of over two hundred years. It claimed to be the first to sell tea "according to the directions of the most knowing merchants and travellers into the eastern countries," but ultimately became more famous for its sandwiches and sherry. No doubt it was the latter, or something even more substantial, that Mr. Pickwick had been indulging during the day he wrote that momentous message. Garraway's was known to Defoe, Dean Swift, Steele and others, each of whom have references to it in their books, and during its affluent days it was never excelled by other taverns in the city for good fare and comfort. It was there that the "South Sea Bubblers" frequently met. [illustration: Garraway's Coffee House. From a sketch taken shortly before demolition] Garraway's is mentioned in other books of Dickens. In Martin Chuzzlewit, for instance, Nadgett, who undertook the task of making secret enquiries for the Anglo-Bengalee business, used to sit in Garraway's, and was occasionally seen drying a damp pocket handkerchief before the fire, looking over his shoulder for the man who never appeared. It is also referred to in Little Dorrit as one of the coffee houses frequented by Mr. Flintwich. In The Uncommercial Traveller, in writing about the "City of the Absent," Dickens makes this further allusion to the tavern: "There is an old monastery-cript under Garraway's (I have been in it among the port wine), and perhaps Garraway's, taking pity on the mouldy men who wait in its public room, all their lives, gives them cool house-room down there on Sundays." Again in Christmas Stories the narrator of the "Poor Relation's Story" who lived in a lodging in the Clapham Road, tells how, amongst other things, he used to sit in Garraway's Coffee House in the city to pass away the time until it was time to dine, afterwards returning to his lodgings in the evening. But of all these references, Mr. Pickwick's mention of Garraway's in his note to Mrs. Bardell is the one which will prevent its name and fame from being forgotten more than any other incident connected with it that we know of. The "White Horse Cellar" from which the Pickwickians set out on the coach journey to Bath stood, at the time, at the corner of Arlington Street, Piccadilly, on the site occupied by the "Ritz" to-day. It was as famous and notorious as any coaching office in London; perhaps being in close proximity to the park and being in the west end, more famous than any.