“Much!” she screamed. “They don't go at all! They can't! They won't let us! To be sure, there are some that have rooms where ladies can go with their friends who are members, and have lunch or dinner; but as for seeing the inside of the club-house proper, where these great creatures”—she indicated her husband—“are sitting up, smoking and telling stories, it isn't to be dreamed of.”
Her husband laughed. “You wouldn't like the smoking, Dolly.”
“Nor the stories, some of them,” she retorted.
“Oh, the stories are always first-rate,” he said, and he laughed more than before.
“And they never gossip at the clubs, Mr. Homos—never!” she added.
“Well, hardly ever,” said her husband, with an intonation that I did not understand. It seemed to be some sort of catch-phrase.
“All I know,” said Mrs. Makely, “is that I like to have my husband belong to his club. It's a nice place for him in summer; and very often in winter, when I'm dull, or going out somewhere that he hates, he can go down to his club and smoke a cigar, and come home just about the time I get in, and it's much better than worrying through the evening with a book. He hates books, poor Dick!” She looked fondly at him, as if this were one of the greatest merits in the world. “But I confess I shouldn't like him to be a mere club man, like some of them.”
“But how?” I asked.
“Why, belonging to five or six, or more, even; and spending their whole time at them, when they're not at business.”
There was a pause, and Mr. Makely put on an air of modest worth, which he carried off with his usual wink towards me. I said, finally, “And if the ladies are not admitted to the men's clubs, why don't they have clubs of their own?”