like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and

stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and

what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and

thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The

air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one

might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick

people went down to be dipped into the sea. A little fishing was

done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and

looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made,

and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business

whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it

was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a

lamplighter.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had

been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be

seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry’s

thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it was dark, and he sat before

the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his

breakfast, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging, in the live

red coals.

A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red

coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him

out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just

poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an

appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly

gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle,

when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled

into the inn-yard.

He set down his glass untouched. “This is Mam’selle!” he said.

In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss

Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the

gentleman from Tellson’s.

“So soon?”

Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and

required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the

gentleman from Tellson’s immediately, if it suited his pleasure and

convenience.

The gentleman from Tellson’s had nothing left for it but to

empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd

little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette’s

apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal

manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the

table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every

leaf; as if they were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and

no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were

dug out.

The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry,