A Tale of Two Cities

privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little
light the ground floor had, in a rather significant manner.

Cramped in all kinds of dun cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the
oldest of men carried on the business gravely.  When they took a
young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he
was old.  They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had
the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him.  Then only was he
permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and
casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the
establishment.

Outside Tellson's--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an
odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the
live sign of the house.  He was never absent during business hours,
unless upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son:  a
grisly urchin of twelve, who was his express image.  People
understood that Tellson's, in a stately way, tolerated the
odd-job-man.  The house had always tolerated some person in that
capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person to the post.  His
surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing
by proxy the works of darkness, in the easterly parish church of
Hounsditch, he had received the added appellation of Jerry.

The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley,
Whitefriars:  the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March
morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty.  (Mr. Cruncher
himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes:
apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the
invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.)

Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and
were but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass
in it might be counted as one.  But they were very decently kept.
Early as it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay
abed was already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and
saucers arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very
clean white cloth was spread.

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin
at home.  At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll
and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky
hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons.  At which
juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:

"Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!"

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in
a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was
the person referred to.

"What!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot.  "You're at
it agin, are you?"

After hailing the mom with this second salutation, he threw a boot at
the woman as a third.  It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce
the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy,
that, whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean
boots, he often got up next morning to find the same boots
covered with clay.

"What," said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing
his mark--"what are you up to, Aggerawayter?"

"I was only saying my prayers."

"Saying your prayers!  You're a nice woman!  What do you mean by
flopping yourself down and praying agin me?"

"I was not praying against you; I was praying for you."

"You weren't.  And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with.
Here! your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin
your father's prosperity.  You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my
son.  You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy:  going and
flopping herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be
snatched out of the mouth of her only child."

Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and,
turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his
personal board.

"And what do you suppose, you conceited female," said Mr. Cruncher,
with unconscious inconsistency, "that the worth of _your_ prayers may be?
Name the price that you put _your_ prayers at!"

"They only come from the heart, Jerry.  They are worth no more than that."

"Worth no more than that," repeated Mr. Cruncher. "They ain't worth
much, then.  Whether or no, I won't be prayed agin, I tell you.
I can't afford it. I'm not a going to be made unlucky by _your_
sneaking. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour
of your husband and child, and not in opposition to 'em.  If I
had had any but a unnat'ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but
a unnat'ral mother, I might have made some money last week instead
of being counter-prayed and countermined and religiously circumwented
into the worst of luck.  B-u-u-ust me!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all
this time had been putting on his clothes, "if I ain't, what with
piety and one blowed thing and another, been choused this last week
into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with!