《A Tale of Two Cities》　Book3　CHAPTER
IX The Game Made
　　　　by Charles Dickens

WHILE Sydney Carton and
the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound
was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest
tradesman's manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg
on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all;
he examined his finger-nails with a very questionable closeness of attention; and whenever
Mr. Lorry's eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring
the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity
attendant on perfect openness of character.



`Jerry,' said Mr. Lorry. `Come here.'



Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance of him.



`What have you been, besides a messenger?'



After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher
conceived the luminous idea of replying, `Agricultooral character.'



`My mind misgives me much,' said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger at him, `that you
have used the respectable and great house of Tellson's as a blind, and that you have had
an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. If you have, don't expect me to
befriend you when you get back to England. If you have, don't expect me to keep your
secret. Tellson's shall not be imposed upon.'



`I hope, sir,' pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, `that a gentleman like yourself wot I've
had the honour of odd jobbing till I'm grey at it, would think twice about harming
of me, even if it wos,--so I don't say it is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be
took into account that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be all o' one side. There'd be
two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their
guineas where a honest tradesman don't pick up his fardens--fardens! no, nor yet his half
fardens--half fardens! no, nor yet his quarter--a banking away like smoke at Tellson's,
and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to
their own carriages--ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that 'ud be imposing,
too, on Tellson's. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander. And here's Mrs.
Cruncher, or leastways

wos in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, a floppin' again the
business to that degree as is ruinating stark ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors'
wives don't flop--catch 'em at it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of
more patients, and how can you rightly have one without the t'other? Then, wot with
undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private
watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn't get much by it, even if it wos so.
And wot little a man did get, would never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He'd never have no
good of it; he'd want all along to be out of the line, if he could see his way out, being
once in--even if it wos so.'



`Ugh!' cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless. `I am shocked at the sight of
you.'



`Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,' pursued Mr. Cruncher, `even if it wos so,
which I don't say it is---'



`Don't prevaricate,' said Mr. Lorry.



`No, I will not, sir,' returned Mr. Cruncher, as if nothing were further from his thoughts
or practice--`which I don't say it is--wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be
this. Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up
and growed up to be a man, wot will errand you, message you, general-light-job you, till
your heels is where your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it wos so, which I
still don't say it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep
his father's place, and take care of his mother; don't blow upon that boy's father--do not
do it, sir--and let that father go

into the line of the reg'lar diggin', and make amends for what he would have un-dug--if it
wos so--by diggin' of 'em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin' the futur'
keepin' of 'em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,' said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his
arm, as an announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his discourse, `is wot I
would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don't see all this here a goin' on dreadful
round him, in the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to bring
the price down to porterage and hardly that, without havin' his serious thoughts of
things. And these here

would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin' of you fur to bear in mind that wot I said just
now, I up and said in the good cause when I might have kep' it back.'



`That at least is true,' said Mr. Lorry. `Say no more now. It may be that I shall yet
stand your friend, if you deserve it, and, repent in action--not in words. I want no more



Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark
room. `Adieu, Mr. Barsad,' said the former; `our arrangement thus made, you have nothing
to fear from me.'



He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr.
Lorry asked him what he had done?



`Not much. If it should go ill with the prisone I have ensured access to him, Once.'



Mr. Lorry's countenance fell.



`It is all I could do,' said Carton. `To propose too much, would be to put this man's head
under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were
denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it.'



`But access to him,' said Mr. Lorry, `if it should go ill before the Tribunal, will not
save him.'



`I never said it would.'



Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his darling, and the heavy
disappointment of this second arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man now,
overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell.



`You are a good man and a true friend,' said Carton, in an altered voice. `Forgive me if I
notice that you are affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I
could not respect your sorrow more, if you, were my father. You are free from that
misfortune, however.



Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there was a true feeling
and respect both in his tone and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the
better side of him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently
pressed it.



`To return to poor Darnay,' said Carton. `Don't tell Her of this interview, or this
arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived,
in case of the worst, to convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence.'



Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if it were in
his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, and evidently understood it.



`She might think a thousand things,' Carton said, `and any of them would only add to her
trouble. Don't speak of me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better not
see her. I can put my hand out, to do any little helpful work for her that my hand can
find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She must be very desolate
to-night.



`I am going now, directly.'



`I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance on you. How does
she look?'



`Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.' `Ah!'



It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh--almost like a sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry's
eyes to Cartons face, which was turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman
could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a
hill-side on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little
flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat and topboots, then
in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their light surfaces made him look very pale,
with his long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire
was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; his boot was
still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of his
foot.



`I forgot it,' he said.



Mr. Lorry's eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the wasted air which
clouded the naturally handsome features, and having the expression of prisoners' faces
fresh in his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression.



`And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?' said Carton, turning to him.



`Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so unexpectedly, I have at length
done all that I can do here. I hoped to have left them in perfect safety, and then to have
quitted Pass. I have my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go.'



They were both silent.



`Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir?' said Carton, wistfully.



`I am in my seventy-eighth year.'



`You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; trusted, respected,
and looked up to?'



`I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. Indeed, I may say that I was
a man of business when a boy.'



`See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many people will miss you when you leave
it empty!'



`A solitary old bachelor,' answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. `There is nobody to weep
for me.'



`How can you say that? Wouldn't She weep for you? Wouldn't her chi!d?'



`Yes, yes, thank God. I didn't quite mean what I said.'



`It is a thing to thank God for; is it not?'



`Surely, surely.'



`If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, "I have secured
to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have
won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be
remembered by!" your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would
they not?'



`You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would he.



Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a few moments, said:



`I should like to ask you:--Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at
your mother's knee, seem days of very long ago?'



Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: `Twenty years back, yes; at this
time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle,
nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and
preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen
asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days
when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in
me.'



`I understand the feeling!' exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. `And you are the better
for it?'



`I hope so.



Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on with his outer coat;
`but you,' said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, `you are young.'



`Yes,' said Carton. `I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age. Enough of
me.



`And of me, I am sure,' said Mr. Lorry. `Are you going out?'



`I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless habits. If I should
prowl about the streets a long time, don't be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You
go to the Court to-morrow?'



Yes, unhappily.'



`I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a place for me. Take my
arm, sir.'



Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the streets. A few minutes brought
them to Mr. Lorry's destination. Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance,
and turned back to the gate again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her
going to the prison every day. `She came out here,' he said, looking about him, `turned
this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her steps.



It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before the prison of La Force, where she had
stood hundreds of times. A little wood-sawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his
pipe at his shop-door.



`Good night, citizen,' said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; for, the man eyed him
inquisitively.



`Good night, citizen.'



`How goes the Republic?'



`You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. We shall mount to a hundred soon.
Samson and his men complain sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll,
that Samson. Such a Barber!'



`Do you often go to see him---'



`Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You have seen him at work?'



`Never.'



`Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself citizen; he shaved the
sixty-three to-day, in less than two pipes! Less than two pipes. Word of honour!'



As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain how he timed the
executioner, Carton was so sensible of a rising desire to strike the life out of him, that
he turned away.



`But you are not English,' said the wood-sawyer, `though you wear English dress?'