In a large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, these four dwelt
together; a family in appearance, in reality a financial association.
Julia and Uncle Joseph were, of course, slaves; John, a gentle man with
a taste for the banjo, the music-hall, the Gaiety bar, and the sporting
papers, must have been anywhere a secondary figure; and the cares
and delights of empire devolved entirely upon Morris. That these are
inextricably intermixed is one of the commonplaces with which the bland
essayist consoles the incompetent and the obscure, but in the case of
Morris the bitter must have largely outweighed the sweet. He grudged no
trouble to himself, he spared none to others; he called the servants
in the morning, he served out the stores with his own hand, he took
soundings of the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits; painful
scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was frequently
impeached, and the tradespeople came and hectored with him in the back
parlour upon a question of three farthings. The superficial might have
deemed him a miser; in his own eyes he was simply a man who had been
defrauded; the world owed him seven thousand eight hundred pounds, and
he intended that the world should pay.
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