settled the question of his detachment from the poor young lady,

by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him flying

back against the nearest wall.

(“I really think this must be a man!” was Mr. Lorry’s breathless

reflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.)

“Why, look at you all!” bawled this figure, addressing the inn

servants. “Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead of standing

there staring at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don’t

you go and fetch things? I’ll let you know, if you don’t bring

smelling-salts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will.”

There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and

she softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill

and gentleness: calling her “my precious!” and “my bird!” and

spreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

pride and care.

“And you in brown!” she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry;

“couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, without frightening

her to death? Look at her, with her pale face and her cold hands.

Do you call that being a Banker?”

Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so

hard to answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with

much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong woman,

having banished the inn servants under the mysterious penalty of

“letting them know” something not mentioned if they stayed

there, staring, recovered her charge by a regular series of

gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head upon her

shoulder.

“I hope she will do well now,” said Mr. Lorry.

“No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty!”

“I hope,” said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble

sympathy and humility, “that you accompany Miss Manette to

France?”

“A likely thing, too!” replied the strong woman. “If it was ever

intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose

Providence would have cast my lot in an island?”

This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry

withdrew to consider it.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Chapter V

THE WINE SHOP

A

large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the

street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a

cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had

burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wineshop,

shattered like a walnut-shell.

All the people within reach had suspended their business, or

their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough,

irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed,