me open the shop, clean my master's boots, cut
last at dinner, and eat all the crusts. In your
sins, too, I must own you still kept me under;
you soared up to the mistress, while I was content
with the maid."—Sir John Yanbrugh,
The Confederacy
,
iii. 1 (1695).
Brass (Sampson), a knavish, servile attorney, affecting great sympathy with his clients, but in reality fleecing them without mercy.
Sally Brass, Sampson's sister, and an exaggerated edition of her brother.—C. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop (1840).