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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens


259

certain Guillotine card! Do you play?” “No!” returned the spy. “I
throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular with the outrageous
mob, that I only got away from England at the risk of being ducked
to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never
would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this
man knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me.” “Never
you trouble your head about this man,” retorted the contentious
Mr. Cruncher; “you’ll have trouble enough with giving your
attention to that gentleman. And look here! Once more!”- Mr.
Cruncher could not be restrained from making rather an
ostentatious parade of his liberality-“I’d catch hold of your throat
and choke you for half a guinea.” The Sheep of the prisons turned
from him to Sydney Carton, and said, with more decision, “It has
come to a point. I go on duty soon, and can’t overstay my time.
You told me you had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no use
asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office,
putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my
life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short,
I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all
desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper,
and I can swear my way through stone walls, and so can others.
Now, what do you want with me?” “Not very much. You are a
turnkey at the Conciergerie?” “I tell you once for all, there is no
such thing as an escape possible,” said the spy, firmly.

“Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey
at the Conciergerie?” “I am sometimes.” “You can be when you
choose?” “I can pass in and out when I choose.” Sydney Carton
filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out upon the
hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he said,
rising: “So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as
well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you
and me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final
word alone.”
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