him.

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“Good day, Jacques!” the spy repeated; with not quite so much

confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare.

“You deceive yourself, monsieur,” returned the keeper of the

wine-shop. “You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I

am Ernest Defarge.”

“It is all the same,” said the spy, airily, but discomfited too:

“good day!”

“Good day!” answered Defarge, drily.

“I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of

chatting when you entered, that they tell me there isand no

wonder!much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching

the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard.”

“No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. “I

know nothing of it.”

Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood

with his hand on the back of the wife’s chair, looking over that

barrier at the person to whom they were both opposed, and whom

either of them would have shot with the greatest satisfaction.

The spy, well used to his business, did not change his

unconscious attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a

sip of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame

Defarge poured it out for him, took to her knitting again, and

hummed a little song over it.

“You seem to know the quarter well; that is to say, better than I

do?” observed Defarge.

“Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly

interested in its miserable inhabitants.”

“Hah!” muttered Defarge.

“The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge,

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recalls to me,” pursued the spy, “that I have the honour of

cherishing some interesting associations with your name.”

“Indeed!” said Defarge, with much indifference.

“Yes, indeed. When Dr. Manette was released, you, his old

domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you.

You see I am informed of the circumstances?”

“Such is the fact, certainly,” said Defarge. He had had it

conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as she

knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always

with brevity.

“It was to you,” said the spy, “that his daughter came; and it

was from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a

neat brown monsieur; how is he called?in a little wigLorryof

the bank of Tellson and Companyover to England.”

“Such is the fact,” repeated Defarge.

“Very interesting remembrances!” said the spy. “I have known

Dr. Manette and his daughter, in England.”

“Yes?” said Defarge.