While the major was absent from his lodgings, Morgan had been seated
in the landlady's parlor, drinking freely of hot brandy-and-water,
and pouring out on Mrs. Brixham some of the abuse which he had
received from his master up-stairs. Mrs. Brixham was Morgan's slave.
He was his landlady's landlord. He had bought the lease of the house
which she rented; he had got her name and her son's to acceptances,
and a bill of sale which made him master of the luckless widow's
furniture. The young Brixham was a clerk in an insurance office, and
Morgan could put him into what he called quod any day. Mrs. Brixham
was a clergyman's widow, and Mr. Morgan, after performing his duties
on the first floor, had a pleasure in making the old lady fetch him
his boot-jack and his slippers. She was his slave. The little black
profiles of her son and daughter; the very picture of Tiddlecot
church, where she was married, and her poor dear Brixham lived and
died, was now Morgan's property, as it hung there over the
mantle-piece of his back-parlor.
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