Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained from making rather an
ostentatious parade of his liberality—“I’d catch hold of your throat
and choke you for half a guinea.”
The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton,
and said, with more decision, “It has come to a point. I go on duty
soon, and can’t overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal;
what is it? Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to
do anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger,
and I had better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the
chances of consent. In short, I should make that choice. You talk of
desperation. We are all desperate here. Remember! I may
denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my way through
stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with me?”
“Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?”
“I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape
possible,” said the spy firmly.
“Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a
turnkey at the Conciergerie?”
“I am sometimes.”
“You can be when you choose?”
“I can pass in and out when I choose.”
Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it
slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being
all spent, he said, rising:
“So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well
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A Tale of Two Cities
that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and
me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word
alone.”
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A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter XXXIX
THE GAME MADE
W hile 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 deion. If you have, don’t expect
me to befriend you when you get back to England. If you have,
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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 your"};
