Soho while he was yet on St. Dunstan’s side of Temple Bar,

bursting in his full-blown way along the pavement, to the

jostlement of all weaker people, might have seen how safe and

strong he was.

His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at

Tellson’s and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the

Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the bank, and

reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he

pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled

down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and

shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat

at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to

his window as if that was ruled for figures too, and everything

under the clouds were a sum.

“Halloa!” said Mr. Stryver, “How do you do? I hope you are

well!”

It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big

for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that

old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance,

as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself,

magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective,

lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its

responsible waistcoat.

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice