Policeman X entered; followed by the scared Mrs. Brixham and her maid-of-all-work, who had been at the door and found some difficulty in closing it against the street amateurs, who wished to see the row. The major began instantly to speak.
"I have had occasion to discharge this drunken scoundrel," he said, "Both last night and this morning he insulted and assaulted me. I am an old man and took up a pistol. You see it is not loaded, and this coward cried out before he was hurt. I am glad you are come. I was charging him with taking my property, and desired to examine his trunks and his room."
"The velvet cloak you ain't worn these three years, nor the weskits, and I thought I might take the shirts, and I—I take my hoath I intended to put back the hopera-glass," roared Morgan, writhing with rage and terror.
"The man acknowledges that he is a thief," the major said, calmly, "He has been in my service for years, and I have treated him with every kindness and confidence. We will go up-stairs and examine his trunks." In those trunks Mr. Morgan had things which he would fain keep from public eyes. Mr. Morgan, the bill discounter, gave goods as well as money to his customers. He provided young spendthrifts with snuff-boxes and pins and jewels and pictures and cigars, and of a very doubtful quality those cigars and jewels and pictures were. Their display at a police-office, the discovery of his occult profession, and the exposure of the major's property, which he had appropriated, indeed, rather than stolen—would not have added to the reputation of Mr. Morgan. He looked a piteous image of terror and discomfiture.
"He'll smash me, will he?" thought the major. "I'll crush him now, and finish with him."
But he paused. He looked at poor Mrs. Brixham's scared face; and he thought for a moment to himself that the man brought to bay and in prison might make disclosures which had best be kept secret, and that it was best not to deal too fiercely with a desperate man.
"Stop," he said, "policeman. I'll speak with this man by himself." "Do you give Mr. Morgan in charge?" said the policeman.
"I have brought no charge as yet," the major said, with a significant look at his man.
"Thank you sir," whispered Morgan, very low.
"Go outside the door, and wait there, policeman, if you please—Now, Morgan, you have played one game with me, and you have not had the best of it, my good man. No, begad, you've not had the best of it, though you had the best hand; and you've got to pay, too, now, you scoundrel."