nervously on the ground.

“You do not find it easy to advise me?” said Mr. Lorry. “I quite

understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think” And there

he shook his head, and stopped.

“You see,” said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy

pause, “it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost

workings of this poor man’s mind. He once yearned so frightfully

for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt

it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the

fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he

became more practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the

ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been able to

bear the thought of putting it quite out of his reach. Even now,

when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever

been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the

idea that he might need that old employment, and not find it, gives

him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy

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strikes to the heart of a lost child.”

He looked like his allusion as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry’s

face.

“But may notmind! I ask for information, as a plodding man

of business who only deals with such material objects as guineas,

shillings, and banknotesmay not the retentio