send somebody from our House here to our
House there, who knows the city and the business,
of old, and is in Tellson's confidence. As
to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and
the winter weather, if I were not prepared to
submit myself to a few inconveniences for the
sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who
ought to be?"

"I wish I were going myself," said Charles
Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one
thinking aloud.

"Indeed!  You are a pretty fellow to object
and advise!" exclaimed Mr. Lorry. "You wish
you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman
born? You are a wise counsellor."

"My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a
Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did
not mean to utter here, however) has passed
through my mind often. One cannot help
thinking, having had some sympathy for the
miserable people, and having abandoned
something to them," he spoke here in his former
thoughtful manner, "that one might be listened
to, and might have the power to persuade to
some restraint. Only last night, after you
had left us, when I was talking to Lucie——"

"When you were talking to Lucie," Mr.
Lorry repeated. "Yes. I wonder you are not
ashamed to mention the name of Lucie!
Wishing you were going to France at this time
of day!"

"However, I am not going," said Charles
Darnay, with a smile. "It is more to the
purpose that you say you are."

"And I am, in plain reality. The truth is,
my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry glanced at the
distant House, and lowered his voice, "you can
have no conception of the difficulty with which
our business is transacted, and of the peril in
which our books and papers over yonder are
involved. The Lord above knows what the
compromising consequences would be to numbers
of people, if some of our documents were seized
or destroyed; and they might be, at any time,
you know, for who can say that Paris is not
set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a
judicious selection from these with the least
possible delay, and the burying of them, or
otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is
within the power (without loss of precious time)
of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And
shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and
says this— Tellson's, whose bread I have eaten
these sixty years— because I am a little stiff
about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half
a dozen old codgers here!"

"How I admire the gallantry of your youthful
spirit, Mr. Lorry."

"Tut! Nonsense, sir!—And, my dear Charles,"
said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again,
"you are to remember, that getting things out
of Paris at this present time, no matter what
things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and
precious matters were this very day brought to us
here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not
business-like to whisper it, even to you), by the
strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of
whom had his head hanging on by a single
hair as he passed the Barriers. At another
time, our parcels would come and go, as easily
as in business-like Old England; but now, everything
is stopped."

"And do you really go to-night?"

"I really go to-night, for the case has become
too pressing to admit of delay."

"And do you take no one with, you?"

"All sorts of people have been proposed to
me, but I will have nothing to say to any of
them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been
my body-guard on Sunday nights for a long time
past, and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect
Jerry of being anything but an English
bulldog, or of having any design in his head
but to fly at anybody who touches his master."

"I must say again that I heartily admire
your gallantry and youthfulness."

"I must say again, nonsense, nonsense!
When I have executed this little commission, I
shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire
and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to
think about growing old."

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's
usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within
a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would
do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before
long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur
under his reverses as a refugee, and it was
much too much the way of native British
orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if
it were the one only harvest ever known under
the skies that had not been sown—as if nothing
had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that
had led to it—as if observers of the wretched
millions in France, and of the misused and
perverted resources that should have made them
prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming,
years before, and had not in plain words recorded
what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with
the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the
restoration of a state of things that had utterly
exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and
earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured
without some remonstrance by any sane man
who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring
all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion
of blood in his own head, added to a
latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already
made Charles Darnay restless, and which still
kept him so.

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's
Bench Bar, far on his way to state promotion,
and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching to
Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people
up and exterminating them from the face of the
earth, and doing without them: and for accomplishing
many similar objects akin in their nature
to the abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on
the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with
a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay
stood divided between going away that he might
hear no more, and remaining to interpose his
word, when the thing that was to be, went on
to shape itself out.

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying