The “Bell” is, or should be, famous as the inn where “Stilton” cheese was first introduced to an appreciative and unduly confiding world. It was an old-time landlord, the sporting Cooper Thornhill, who flourished, and rode horseback in record time to London and back to Stilton again, about 1740, to whom the world was thus originally indebted. He obtained his cheese from a Mrs. Paulet of Wymondham, who at first supplied him with this product of her dairy for the use of coach-passengers dining at his table. Her cheeses at once appealed to connoisseurs, and Thornhill presently began to supply them to travellers eager to take this new-found delicacy away with them. He was too business-like a man to disclose the secret of their origin, and it was long supposed they came from a dairy at Stilton belonging to him. He did so well for himself, charging half-a-crown a pound, that others entered the lucrative trade, and you could no more journey through Stilton without having a Stilton cheese (metaphorically) thrown at your head than you can halt to-day at Banbury station without hearing the musical cry of “Ba-anbury Ca-a-akes!” Then Miss Worthington, landlady of the “Angel” opposite, began also to supply Stilton cheeses. Rosy, plump, and benevolent-looking--apparently one in whom there was no guile--she would ask passengers if they would not like to take away with them a “real Stilton cheese.” All went well for a while, and Stilton cheeses tasted none the worse because they were not made there. And then the terrible secret was disclosed. [Illustration: THE “RED LION,” EGHAM.] “Pray, sir, would you like a nice Stilton cheese to take away with you?” asked the unsuspecting landlady one day, as a coach drew up. “Do you say they are made at Stilton?” asked the passenger. “Oh yes,” said she. Then came the crushing rejoinder: “Why, Miss Worthington, you know perfectly well that no Stilton cheese was ever made at Stilton: they’re all made in Leicestershire; and as you say your cheeses are made at Stilton, they cannot be good, and I won’t have one.” It is the merest commonplace to say that time works wonders. We know it does: wonders not infrequently of the most unpleasant kind. When we find time bringing about marvels of the pleasant and desirable sort I think we should account ourselves fortunate.