“You are no longer my servant,” the Major said, “and the house may be yours; but the lodgings are mine, and you will have the goodness to leave them. To-morrow morning, when we have settled our accounts, I shall remove into other quarters. In the meantime, I desire to go to bed, and have not the slightest wish for your further company.”
“We’ll have a settlement, don’t you be afraid,” Morgan said, getting up from his chair. “I ain’t done with you yet; nor with your family, nor with the Clavering family, Major Pendennis; and that you shall know.”
“Have the goodness to leave the room, sir—I’m tired,” said the Major.
“Hah! you’ll be more tired of me afore you’ve done,” answered the man, with a sneer, and walked out of the room; leaving the Major to compose himself as best he might, after the agitation of this extraordinary scene.
He sate and mused by his fireside over the past events, and the confounded impudence and ingratitude of servants; and thought how he should get a new man: how devilish unpleasant it was for a man of his age, and with his habits, to part with a fellow to whom he had been accustomed: how Morgan had a receipt for boot-varnish, which was incomparably better and more comfortable to the feet than any he had ever tried: how very well he made mutton-broth, and tended him when he was unwell. “Gad, it’s a hard thing to lose a fellow of that sort: but he must go,” thought the Major. “He has grown rich, and impudent since he has grown rich. He was horribly tipsy and abusive to-night. We must part, and I must go out of the lodgings. Dammy, I like the lodgings; I’m used to ’em. It’s very unpleasant, at my time of life, to change my quarters.” And so on, mused the old gentleman. The shower-bath had done him good: the testiness was gone: the loss of the umbrella, the smell of paint at the Club, were forgotten under the superior excitement. “Confound the insolent villain!” thought the old gentleman. “He understood my wants to a nicety: he was the best servant in England.” He thought about his servant as a man thinks of a horse that has carried him long and well, and that has come down with him, and is safe no longer. How the deuce to replace him? Where can he get such another animal?
In these melancholy cogitations the Major, who had donned his own dressing-gown and replaced his head of hair (a little grey had been introduced into the coiffure of late by Mr. Truefitt, which had given the Major’s head the most artless and respectable appearance); in these cogitations, we say, the Major, who had taken off his wig and put on his night-handkerchief, sate absorbed by the fireside, when a feeble knock came at his door, which was presently opened by the landlady of the lodgings.
“God bless my soul, Mrs. Brixham!” cried out the Major, startled that a lady should behold him in the simple appareil of his night-toilet. “It—it’s very late, Mrs. Brixham.”
“I wish I might speak to you, sir,” said the landlady, very piteously.
“About Morgan, I suppose? He has cooled himself at the pump. Can’t take him back, Mrs. Brixham. Impossible. I’d determined to part with him before, when I heard of his dealings in the discount business—I suppose you’ve heard of them, Mrs. Brixham? My servant’s a capitalist, begad.”
“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Brixham, “I know it to my cost. I borrowed from him a little money five years ago; and though I have paid him many times over, I am entirely in his power. I am ruined by him, sir. Everything I had is his. He’s a dreadful man.”