“It’s a name Tom gives to houses in Chelsea, like my aunt Pile’s house. Where the people talk a good deal of poetry and painting. Where you meet intellectual people.”
“Don’t you like intellectual people, Stukeley?”
“I don’t like prigs, and I don’t like blue-stockings, and I don’t like——”
“People who care for beautiful things? Is that it?”
“A lot of mewing old women who ought to be in a rook-shop.”
“What’s a rook-shop?” said Olivia.
“A monastery, my dear. A monk or nun house. Somewhere where they could mew and caw their silly hearts out. Beauty. Eh? Beauty. I’ve heard ’em talk about beauty. What do they know about beauty?”
“There’s nothing in poetry and that,” said Mr. Iles, rallying to his patron. “What’s the good of it? It’s unpractical stuff. B’gee, der poets should come to sea. I’d show ’em what to write about.”
“What would you show them?” said Perrin.
“Show them?” said Mr. Iles. “I’d show them what a man is, for one thing.”