that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you

so adornthe dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O

Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks

up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty spring up anew

at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would

give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”

He said, “Farewell!” said a last “God bless you!” and left her.

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Chapter XX

THE HONEST TRADESMAN

To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in

Fleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast

number and variety of objects in movement were every

day presented. Who could sit upon anything in Fleet Street during

the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two

immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun,

the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to

the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes

down!

With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two

streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been

on duty watching one streamsaving that Jerry had no

expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an

expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was

derived from the pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit

and past the middle term of life) from Tellson’s side of the tides to

the opposite shore. Brief as such companionship was in every

separate instance. Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so

interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the

honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts

bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent

purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed.

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and

mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a

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public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and

looked about him.

It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds

were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general

were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his

breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been “flopping” in some

pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down Fleet

Street westward, attracted his attention. Looking that way, Mr.

Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was coming along,

and that there was popular objection to this funeral, which

engendered uproar.

“Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, “it’s

a buryin’.”

“Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry.

The young man uttered this exultant sound with mysterious