Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

Congreve’s line is a compact satire on polite society: “tea” signals the ritualized sociability of the drawing room, while “scandal” names the real entertainment—gossip, reputation-management, and social policing. The phrase “according to their ancient custom” adds mock-epic distance, treating a petty habit as if it were a venerable tradition, and implying that such talk is entrenched and self-perpetuating. The wit lies in the cool, reportorial tone: the speaker does not moralize directly, but the juxtaposition makes the judgment. In Congreve’s comic world, conversation is both currency and weapon, and this line captures how leisure can become a system for circulating and enforcing social norms.