Francis Clavering's Shepherd's Inn haunt,
and walked thither an hour or two after the Baronet and Pendennis
had had their conversation together. But that bird was flown; Colonel
Altamont had received his Derby winnings, and was gone to the Continent.
The fact of his absence was exceedingly vexatious to Mr. Morgan. "He'll
drop all that money at the gambling-shops on the Rhind," thought Morgan,
"and I might have had a good bit of it. It's confounded annoying to
think he's gone and couldn't have waited a few days longer." Hope,
triumphant or deferred, ambition or disappointment, victory or patient
ambush, Morgan bore all alike, with similar equable countenance. Until
the proper day came, the Major's boots were varnished and his hair was
curled, his early cup of tea was brought to his bedside, his oaths,
rebukes, and senile satire borne, with silent, obsequious fidelity. Who
would think, to see him waiting upon his master, packing and shouldering
his trunks, and occasionally assisting at table, at the country-houses
where he might be staying, that Morgan was richer than his employer, and
knew his secrets and other people's? In the profession Mr. Morgan was
greatly respected and admired, and his reputation for wealth and wisdom
got him much renown at most supper-tables: the younger gentlemen voted
him stoopid, a feller of no idears, and a fogey, in a word: but not one
of them would not say amen to the heartfelt prayer which some of the
most serious-minded among the gentlemen uttered, "When I die may I cut
up as well as Morgan Pendennis!"

As became a man of fashion, Major Pendennis spent the autumn passing
from house to house of such country friends as were at home to receive
him; and if the Duke happened to be abroad, the Marquis in Scotland,
condescending to sojourn with Sir John or the plain Squire. To say the
truth, the old gentleman's reputation was somewhat on the wane: many of
the men of his time had died out, and the occupants of their halls and
the present wearers of their titles knew not Major Pendennis: and little
cared for his traditions of "the wild Prince and Poins," and of the
heroes of fashion passed away. It must have struck the good man with
melancholy as he walked by many a London door, to think how seldom it
was now opened for him, and how often he used to knock at it--to what
banquets and welcome he used to pass through it--a score of years back.
He began to own that he was no longer of the present age, a