“I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you

were,” said Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both

laughed.

“Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since

Shrewsbury,” pursued Carton, “you have fallen into your rank,

and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellow-students in

the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking up French, and French law,

and other French crumbs that we didn’t get much good of, you

were always somewhere and I was alwaysnowhere.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were

always driving and riving and shouldering and pressing, to that

restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and

repose. It’s a gloomy thing, however, to talk about one’s own past,

with the day breaking. Turn me in some other direction before I

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

go.”

“Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,” said Stryver,

holding up his glass. “Are you turned in a pleasant direction?”

Apparently not, for he became gloomy again.

“Pretty witness,” he muttered, looking down into his glass. “I

have had enough of witnesses today and tonight: who’s your pretty

witness?”

“The picturesque doctor’s daughter, Miss Manette.”