“What sort of stories do you tell?” Olivia asked.
“Just amusing stories to pass the time, miss,” he answered.
“Do you make them up yourself?”
“Some of them I seen myself, miss,” he answered. “I don’t know who makes the others up. Some son of a—— Some gentleman’s son with nothing better to do. But b’gee, I don’t tink I could tell one of them kind here exactly.”
“Why not?” asked Captain Margaret, looking at him coldly. “Why couldn’t you?”
“I guess you know, all right, all right.”
“I don’t frequent pothouses. So perhaps I don’t know.”
“That’s where you sentimental prigs go wrong,” said Stukeley, flaring up. “It’d do you a sight of good if you did frequent pothouses. You meet better people in a pothouse than you do in one of your Chelsea twaddle-shops.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Margaret calmly. “What is a Chelsea twaddle-shop, Olivia? You’ve stayed at Chelsea. What is it? A book-shop?”
Olivia smiled. Captain Margaret was like her dead brother; he did not show temper even when people spoke to rouse him. She defined the offending shop.