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 exercise 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. “Carton,” said his friend, squaring

himself at him with a bullying air, as if the fire-grate had been the

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furnace in which sustained endeavour was forged, and one

delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney Carton of old

Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, “your way is, and

always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose.

Look at me.”

“Oh, botheration!” returned Sydney, with a lighter and more

good-humoured laugh, “don’t you be moral!”

“How have I done what I have done?” said Stryver; “how do I

do what I do?”

“Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it’s not

worth while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want

to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always

behind.”

“I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?”