From Chapter 2:
The properly accomplished gallant not only professed to be curiously learned in pipes and tobacco, but his knowledge of prices and their fluctuations, of the apothecaries' and other shops where the herb was sold, and of the latest and most fashionable ways of inhaling and exhaling the smoke, was, like Mr. Weller's knowledge of London, "extensive and peculiar." It was knowledge of this kind that gained for a gallant reputation and respect by no means to be acquired by mere scholarship and learning.

From Chapter 5:
The arrival of coffee and the establishment of coffee-houses opened a new field for the victories of tobacco. The first house was opened in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in 1652. Others soon followed, and in a short time the new beverage had captured the town, and coffee-houses had been opened in every direction. They sold many things besides coffee, and served a variety of purposes, but primarily they were temples of talk and good-fellowship. The buzz of conversation and the smoke of tobacco alike filled the rooms which were the forerunners of the club-houses of a much later day.