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


77

himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the drinking-table,
while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn table proper, on the
other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand. Both
resorted to the drinking-table without stint, but each in a different
way; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in his
waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some
lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so
deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he
stretched out for his glass-which often groped about, for a minute
or more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times,
the matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it
imperative on him to get up, and steep his towels anew.

From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, he returned with such
eccentricities of damp headgear as no words can describe; which
were made the more ludicrous by his anxious gravity.

At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion,
and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and
caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and
the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the
lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to
mediate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bumper for his
throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to
the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in
the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck
three in the morning.

“And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,” said
Mr. Stryver.

The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been
steaming again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied.
“You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown
witnesses to-day.

Every question told.” “I always am sound; am I not?” “I don’t
gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to it
and smooth it again.” With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again
complied.

“The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said Stryver,
nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and
the past, “the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the
next; now in spirits and now in despondency!” “Ah!” returned the
other, sighing: “yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even
then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own.”
“And why not?” “God knows. It was my way, I suppose.” He sat,
with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before him,
looking at the fire.
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