A Tale of Two Cities

you would be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time
that your ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will.  Yes, Sydney,
I have had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change
from it; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home
when he feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn't, he can stay away),
and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will
always do me credit.  So I have made up my mind.  And now, Sydney,
old boy, I want to say a word to _you_ about _your_ prospects.  You are
in a bad way, you know; you really are in a bad way.  You don't know
the value of money, you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days,
and be ill and poor; you really ought to think about a nurse."

The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice
as big as he was, and four times as offensive.

"Now, let me recommend you," pursued Stryver, "to look it in the face.
I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the face,
you, in your different way.  Marry.  Provide somebody to take care of you.
Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, nor understanding
of it, nor tact for it.  Find out somebody.  Find out some respectable
woman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way, or
lodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day.  That's the
kind of thing for _you_.  Now think of it, Sydney."

"I'll think of it," said Sydney.



XII

The Fellow of Delicacy


Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of
good fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness
known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation.  After some
mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would
be as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could
then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a
week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation
between it and Hilary.

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but
clearly saw his way to the verdict.  Argued with the jury on substantial
worldly grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--
it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it.  He called himself
for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel
for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn
to consider.  After trying it, Stryver, C.  J., was satisfied that no
plainer case could be.

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a
formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing,
to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present
himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind.

Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the
Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation's infancy was still upon
it.  Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he
was yet on Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his
full-blown way along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker
people, might have seen how safe and strong he was.

His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's
and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it
entered Mr. Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry
the brightness of the Soho horizon.  So, he pushed open the door with
the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past
the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back
closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with
perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for
figures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum.

"Halloa!" said Mr. Stryver.  "How do you do?  I hope you are well!"

It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for
any place, or space.  He was so much too big for Tellson's, that
old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance,
as though he squeezed them against the wall.  The House itself,
magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective,
lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its
responsible waistcoat.

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would
recommend under the circumstances, "How do you do, Mr. Stryver?
How do you do, sir?" and shook hands.  There was a peculiarity in his
manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's
who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air.
He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?" asked Mr. Lorry, in his
business character.

"Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry;
I have come for a private word."

"Oh indeed!" said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye
strayed to the House afar off.

"I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the