spare him?”

“He would count as one dead,” observed Jacques Three, in a

low voice. “We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I

think.”

“He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame

Defarge; “I cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not

be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here.

For I am not a bad witness.”

The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their

fervent protestations that she was the most admirable and

marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone,

declared her to be a celestial witness.

“He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, I

cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you are going

to see the batch of today executed.You?”

The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer. who hurriedly

replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

the most ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the

most desolate of Republicans, if anything prevented him from

enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon pipe in the

contemplation of the droll national barber. He was so very

demonstrative herein, that he might have been suspected (perhaps

was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of