y 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."

"Eh, Mrs. Brixham? tout pis--dev'lish sorry for you, and that I must
quit your house after lodging here so long: there's no help for it. I
must go."

"He says we must all go, sir," sobbed out the luckless widow. "He came
downstairs from you just now--he had been drinking, and it always makes
him very wicked--and he said that you had insulted him, sir, and treated
him like a dog, and spoken to him unkindly; and he swore he would be
revenged, and--and I owe him a hundred and twenty pounds, sir--and he
has a bill of sale of all my furniture--and says he will turn me out of
my hou