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

woman’s society, nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out

somebody. Find out some respectable woman with a little

propertysomebody 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.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Chapter XVIII

THE FELLOW OF DELICACY

madeMr. Stryver having 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 groundsthe only grounds ever worth taking

into accountit 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

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