Page:Gissing - The Unclassed, vol. I, 1884.djvu/59

 occupied since he was five-and-thirty, having gone to it shortly after his wife’s death. The accommodation was all he wanted, and he had been led to take the premises in consequence of having been employed as a lad in this very office. The thought flattered him; he liked to compare that day with this; for the love of power ever in the last resort proved his ruling passion, and he was not above gratifying it in the most ignoble ways. His former employer, who had lived here, failed in business just when Abraham was beginning to flourish, and the latter had gone out of his way to be appointed receiver of the estate, in which capacity he had bullied and humiliated the unfortunate man to his heart’s content. Thereafter he had lent him money, had exercised a horrible tyranny over the poor bankrupt for many years, and had only seen the end of his sport when the man was happy enough to die. And all this out of no definite motive of revenge; merely in brutal exultation over one who had once employed and paid him. The house was at present solidly furnished in the