A Tale of Two Cities

fellow of hard upon fourscore when there are so many people there
much better worth interfering with.  As to its being a disorganised
city, if it were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion
to send somebody from our House here to our House there, who knows
the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's confidence.
As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter
weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences
for the sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who ought to be?"

"I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly,
and like one thinking aloud.

"Indeed!  You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!" exclaimed
Mr. Lorry.  "You wish you were going yourself?  And you a Frenchman
born?  You are a wise counsellor."

"My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the
thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed
through my mind often.  One cannot help thinking, having had some
sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to
them," he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, "that one might
be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint.
Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie--"

"When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated.  "Yes.  I wonder
you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie!  Wishing you were
going to France at this time of day!"

"However, I am not going," said Charles Darnay, with a smile.  "It is
more to the purpose that you say you are."

"And I am, in plain reality.  The truth is, my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry
glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, "you can have no
conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted,
and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved.
The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to
numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed;
and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris
is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow!  Now, a judicious selection
from these with the least possible delay, and the burying of them,
or otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power
(without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself,
if any one.  And shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and says
this--Tellson's, whose bread I have eaten these sixty years--because
I am a little stiff about the joints?  Why, I am a boy, sir, to half
a dozen old codgers here!"

"How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry."

"Tut!  Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, glancing
at the House again, "you are to remember, that getting things out of
Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an
impossibility.  Papers and precious matters were this very day brought
to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to
whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine,
every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he
passed the Barriers.  At another time, our parcels would come and go,
as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everything
is stopped."

"And do you really go to-night?"

"I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to
admit of delay."

"And do you take no one with you?"

"All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have
nothing to say to any of them.  I intend to take Jerry.  Jerry has
been my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used
to him.  Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English
bull-dog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody
who touches his master."

"I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and
youthfulness."

"I must say again, nonsense, nonsense!  When I have executed this
little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire
and live at my ease.  Time enough, then, to think about growing old."

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with Monseigneur
swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to
avenge himself on the rascal-people before long.  It was too much the
way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much
too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible
Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies
that had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted
to be done, that had led to it--as if observers of the wretched
millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that
should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming,
years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw.  Such
vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the
restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself,
and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured
without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth.  And it
was such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of
blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which
had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so.