being tried for one's life, to be the object of such
sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?"

Again Darnay answered not a word.

"She was mightily pleased to have your
message, when I gave it her. Not that she
showed she was pleased, but I suppose she
was."

The allusion served as a timely reminder to
Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of
his own free will, assisted him in the strait of
the day. He turned the dialogue to that point,
and thanked him for it.

"I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,"
was the careless rejoinder. "It was nothing to
do, in the first place; and I don't know why I
did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask
you a question."

"Willingly, and a small return for your good
offices."

"Do you think I particularly like you?"

"Really, Mr. Carton," returned the other,
oddly disconcerted, "I have not asked myself
the question."

"But ask yourself the question now."

"You have acted as if you do; but I don't
think you do."

"I don't think I do," said Carton. "I begin
to have a very good opinion of your
understanding."

"Nevertheless," pursued Darnay, rising to
ring the bell, "there is nothing in that, I hope,
to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our
parting without ill-blood on either side."

Carton rejoining, "Nothing in life!" Darnay
rang. "Do you call the whole reckoning?"
said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative,
"Then bring me another pint of this same wine,
drawer, and come and wake me at ten."

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and
wished him good night. Without returning the
wish, Carton rose too, with something of a
threat or defiance in his manner, and said, "A
last word, Mr. Darnay: you think I am drunk?"

"I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton."

"Think? You know I have been drinking."

"Since I must say so, I know it."

"Then you shall likewise know why. I am a
disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on
earth, and no man on earth cares for me."

"Much to be regretted. You might have
used your talents better."

"May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don't
let your sober face elate you, however; you don't
know what it may come to. Good night!"

When he was left alone, this strange being
took up a candle, went to a glass that hung
against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely
in it.

"Do you particularly like the man?" he
muttered, at his own image; "why should you
particularly like a man who resembles you? There
is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah,
confound you! What a change you have made in
yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that
he shows you what you have fallen away from
and what you might have been! Change places
with him, and would you have been looked at
by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated
by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and
have it out in plain words! You hate the
fellow."

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation,
drank it all in a few minutes, and fell
asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over
the table, and a long winding-sheet in the
candle dripping down upon him.

CHAPTER V. THE JACKAL.

THOSE were drinking days, and most men
drank hard. So very great is the improvement
Time has brought about in such habits, that a
moderate statement of the quantity of wine and
punch which one man would swallow in the
course of a night, without any detriment to his
reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem,
in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The
learned profession of the Law was certainly not
behind any other learned profession in its
Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver,
already fast shouldering his way to a large and
lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this
particular, any more than in the drier parts of
the legal race.

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the
Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun cautiously to
hew away the lower staves of the ladder on
which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey
had now to summon their favourite, specially, to
their longing arms; and shouldering itself
towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in
the Court of King's Bench, the florid countenance
Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting
out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower
pushing its way at the sun from among a rank
garden-full of flaring companions.

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while
Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous,
and a ready, and a bold, he had not
that faculty of extracting the essence from a
heap of statements, which is among the most
striking and necessary of the advocate's
accomplishments. But, a remarkable improvement
came upon him as to this. The more business
he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of
getting at its pith and marrow; and however
late at night he sat carousing with Sydney
Carton, he always had his points at his fingers'
ends in the morning.

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising
of men, was Stryver's great ally. What
the two drank together, between Hilary Term
and Michaelmas, might have floated a king's
ship. Stryver never had a case in hand,
anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in
his pockets, staring at the ceiling of the court;
they went the same Circuit, and even there they
prolonged their usual orgies late into the night,
and Carton was rumoured to be seen at broad
day, going home stealthily and unsteadily to his
lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began
to get about, among such as were interested in
the matter, that although Sydney Carton would
never be a lion, he was an amazingly good