A Tale of Two Cities

o doubt?' said one of the oldest

, in something of a dogged m

nd you know

er,' said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment

ses go in, and show the door-keeper this n

he cour

the

closer to one another, and to interchange

t, sir?' he asked, as the

o you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's attention, and show him wh

at all

e a messenger at hand. This i

ed the note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silen

l be trying Forge

eas

ing,' said Jerr

ent clerk, turning his surprised s

I think. It `shard enough to kill him,

law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and l

and voice,' said Jerry. `I leave you to judg

ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways,

nce than he made an outward show of, `You are a lean old one, too,' made h

ith the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. For the rest, the

humanising and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogeth

r he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in it. For people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the former entertai

urned on its hinges a very little way, and allowe

n a whisper, of the man

hing

s comi

reason

rtering

be taken down and sliced before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while h

ou mean to say?' Jerry a

lty,' said the other. `Do

r's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then or afterwards, seemed to be concent

ith the case?' asked th

I know,' s

do with it, then, if

ow that either

, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the central point of interest. Two

o the

a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like a

him in an impur

black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express itself through any cove

ge details being spared--by just so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered

o forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so

uch, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the under-standing that the afores

uartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from the situation, nor assumed an

edly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was strewn. The court was all

ner that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may

h his eyes, there sat, in that corner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look immediately rested; so

a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a very remarkable appearance in r

him, he looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as It was now, in a

her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had b

ingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about him had pressed and passed the inqu

ness

which

ain

st wha

priso

his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-