All the young men go to Spratt’s after their balls. It is de rigueur, my dear; and they play billiards as they used to play macao and hazard in Mr. Fox’s time.

[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.

Hee haw! Did that come out of me? Oh! Huh? What the …? What's going on? Ahhh!

As with luncheon, afternoon tea was often a women's gathering for reasons that take us back to the reign of Charles II.