prompt:
Chapter: I. Five Years Later

Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the
year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very
dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place,
moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were
proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness,
proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence
in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if
it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was
no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more
convenient places of business. Tellson's (they said) wanted
no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted no
embellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might; but
Tellson's, thank Heaven--!

Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the
question of rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much
on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for
suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly
objectionable, but were only the more respectable.

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant perfection
of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with
a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps,
and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little
counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the
wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of
windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street,
and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the
heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing
"the House," you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back,
where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its
hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal
twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden
drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when
they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they
were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among
the neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good
polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms
made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their
parchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of family
papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great
dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year
one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you
by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released
from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads
exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of
Abyssinia or Ashantee.

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue
with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's.
Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's?
Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note
was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the
purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder
of a horse at Tellson's door, who made off with it, was put to
Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of
three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to
Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--it
might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the
reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each
particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked
after. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business,
its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid
low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately
disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the
ground floor had, in a rather significant manner.

Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the
oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young
man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was
old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full
Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to
be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches
and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.

Outside Tellson's--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an
odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live
sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless
upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin
of twelve, who was his express image. People understood that Tellson's,
in a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always
tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted
this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful
occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the
easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he had received the added
appellation of Jerry.

The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley,
Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March
morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself
always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under
the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a
popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.)

Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were
but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in it
might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as
it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed was
already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged
for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth
was spread.

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin
at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll
and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair
looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he
exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:

"Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!"

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a
corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was the
person referred to.

"What!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. "You're at it
agin, are you?"

After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at
the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the
odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy, that,
whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he
often got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay.

"What," said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his
mark--"what are you up to, Aggerawayter?"

"I was only saying my prayers."

"Saying your prayers! You're a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping
yourself down and praying agin me?"

"I was not praying against you; I was praying for you."

"You weren't. And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with. Here!
your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin your
father's prosperity. You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my son.
You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and flopping
herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be snatched out
of the mouth of her only child."

Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning
to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personal
board.

"And what do you suppose, you conceited female," said Mr. Cruncher, with
unconscious inconsistency, "that the worth of _your_ prayers may be?
Name the price that you put _your_ prayers at!"

"They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than
that."

"Worth no more than that," repeated Mr. Cruncher. "They ain't worth
much, then. Whether or no, I won't be prayed agin, I tell you. I can't
afford it. I'm not a going to be made unlucky by _your_ sneaking. If
you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and
child, and not in opposition to 'em. If I had had any but a unnat'ral
wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat'ral mother, I might
have made some money last week instead of being counter-prayed and
countermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck.
B-u-u-ust me!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting
on his clothes, "if I ain't, what with piety and one blowed thing and
another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor
devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my
boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now and
then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I
tell you," here he addressed his wife once more, "I won't be gone agin,
in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy as
laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if
it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet
I'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've
been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for
it in pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you
say now!"

Growling, in addition, such phrases as "Ah! yes! You're religious, too.
You wouldn't put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husband
and child, would you? Not you!" and throwing off other sarcastic sparks
from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook
himself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business.
In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes,
and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father's did,
kept the required watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor
woman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he made
his toilet, with a suppressed cry of "You are going to flop, mother.
--Halloa, father!" and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in
again with an undutiful grin.

Mr. Cruncher's temper was not at all improved when he came to his
breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher's saying grace with particular
animosity.

"Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again?"

His wife explained that she had merely "asked a blessing."

"Don't do it!" said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expected
to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife's petitions. "I
ain't a going to be blest out of house and home. I won't have my wittles
blest off my table. Keep still!"

Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party
which had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried
his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footed
inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled
aspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an exterior as
he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation
of the day.

It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite
description of himself as "a honest tradesman." His stock consisted of
a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool,
young Jerry, walking at his father's side, carried every morning to
beneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where,
with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned
from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man's
feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr.
Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple, as the Bar
itself,--and was almost as in-looking.

Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his
three-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson's,
Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry
standing by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to
inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing
boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son,
extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic
in Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as the two
eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys.
The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that
the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the
youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else
in Fleet-street.

The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson's
establishment was put through the door, and the word was given:

"Porter wanted!"

"Hooray, father! Here's an early job to begin with!"

Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on
the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father
had been chewing, and cogitated.

"Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!" muttered young Jerry.
"Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don't get no iron
rust here!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Five Years Later The second book opens with a description of the venerable Tellson's Bank. Its darkness and discomfort are much beloved by those who work there. Indeed, their conviction that it should remain inconvenient and deteriorating is so strong that they would have disinherited a son who disagreed with them. Jerry Cruncher, who delivered the message on horseback to Mr. Lorry, serves as an odd job man for Tellson's. He lives in Whitefriars in a tiny apartment kept immaculate by his wife. He abuses this wife roundly for kneeling to pray, insinuating that her prayers interfere with the success of his business. He enlists the aid of his admiring son to prevent Mrs. Cruncher from praying against him. When she tries to pray, her son reveals her transgression to his father. The young Cruncher follows his father to work, and he wonders where the rust on the straw his father is chewing comes from. His job at Tellson's does not involve rust, yet Jerry Cruncher is always rusty


prompt:
Chapter: II. A Sight

"You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?" said one of the oldest of
clerks to Jerry the messenger.

"Ye-es, sir," returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. "I _do_
know the Bailey."

"Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry."

"I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much
better," said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment
in question, "than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey."

"Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the
door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in."

"Into the court, sir?"

"Into the court."

Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to
interchange the inquiry, "What do you think of this?"

"Am I to wait in the court, sir?" he asked, as the result of that
conference.

"I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr.
Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's
attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is,
to remain there until he wants you."

"Is that all, sir?"

"That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him
you are there."

As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note,
Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the
blotting-paper stage, remarked:

"I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries this morning?"

"Treason!"

"That's quartering," said Jerry. "Barbarous!"

"It is the law," remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised
spectacles upon him. "It is the law."

"It's hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It's hard enough to kill
him, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir."

"Not at all," retained the ancient clerk. "Speak well of the law. Take
care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take
care of itself. I give you that advice."

"It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice," said Jerry. "I
leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is."

"Well, well," said the old clerk; "we all have our various ways of
gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry
ways. Here is the letter. Go along."

Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal
deference than he made an outward show of, "You are a lean old one,
too," made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination,
and went his way.

They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had
not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it.
But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and
villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came
into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the
dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It
had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced
his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him.
For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard,
from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on
a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a
half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any.
So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It
was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted
a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for
the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and
softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in
blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically
leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed
under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice
illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism
that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome
consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.

Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this
hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his
way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in
his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play
at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the
former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey
doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the
criminals got there, and those were always left wide open.

After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a
very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into
court.

"What's on?" he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next
to.

"Nothing yet."

"What's coming on?"

"The Treason case."

"The quartering one, eh?"

"Ah!" returned the man, with a relish; "he'll be drawn on a hurdle to
be half hanged, and then he'll be taken down and sliced before his own
face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on,
and then his head will be chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters.
That's the sentence."

"If he's found Guilty, you mean to say?" Jerry added, by way of proviso.

"Oh! they'll find him guilty," said the other. "Don't you be afraid of
that."

Mr. Cruncher's attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom he
saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry
sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged
gentleman, the prisoner's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers
before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands
in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him
then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the
court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing
with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up
to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again.

"What's _he_ got to do with the case?" asked the man he had spoken with.

"Blest if I know," said Jerry.

"What have _you_ got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire?"

"Blest if I know that either," said Jerry.

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling
down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the
central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there,
went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar.

Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the
ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled
at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round
pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows
stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court,
laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help
themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got
upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him.
Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall
of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a
whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with
the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not,
that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him
in an impure mist and rain.

The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about
five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and
a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly
dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and
dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out
of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express
itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his
situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the
soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed,
bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet.

The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at,
was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less
horrible sentence--had there been a chance of any one of its savage
details being spared--by just so much would he have lost in his
fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled,
was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered
and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various
spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and
powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish.

Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to
an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that
he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so
forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers
occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French
King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and
so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of
our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the
said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise
evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our
said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation
to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head
becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with
huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that
the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood
there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and
that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak.

The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged,
beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from
the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and
attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest;
and stood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so
composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which
it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with
vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever.

Over the prisoner's head there was a mirror, to throw the light down
upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in
it, and had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted
in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the
glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one
day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace
for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be
that as it may, a change in his position making him conscious of a bar
of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his
face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs away.

It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court
which was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat,
in that corner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look
immediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his
aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them.

The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than
twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a very
remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair,
and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an active kind,
but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he
looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as
it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter--he became a
handsome man, not past the prime of life.

His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by
him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her
dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had
been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion
that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very
noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who
had had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper went about,
"Who are they?"

Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own
manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his
absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about
him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and
from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got
to Jerry:

"Witnesses."

"For which side?"

"Against."

"Against what side?"

"The prisoner's."

The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them,
leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was
in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the
axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: A Sight An old clerk at Tellson's gives Jerry Cruncher a message to deliver to Mr. Lorry at Old Bailey, where Charles Darnay is being tried. Jerry makes his way into the trial and is reassured by an onlooker that this is indeed the treason case. The man gruesomely describes the quartering that is certain to follow as punishment. When the young gentleman prisoner, Charles Darnay, is brought in, the whole courtroom stares at him. He had pleaded not guilty the previous day. Darnay's gaze rests immediately on Dr. Manette and his daughter, who are to be witnesses for the prosecution


prompt:
Chapter: III. A Disappointment

Mr. Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the prisoner before
them, though young in years, was old in the treasonable practices which
claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence with the
public enemy was not a correspondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or
even of last year, or of the year before. That, it was certain the
prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and
repassing between France and England, on secret business of which
he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature of
traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the real
wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained undiscovered.
That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a person who
was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the nature of the
prisoner's schemes, and, struck with horror, to disclose them to his
Majesty's Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council.
That, this patriot would be produced before them. That, his position and
attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had been the prisoner's
friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil hour detecting his
infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor he could no longer cherish
in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. That, if statues
were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public
benefactors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as
they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue,
as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he well
knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues;
whereat the jury's countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that
they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; more
especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country.
That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witness
for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, had
communicated itself to the prisoner's servant, and had engendered in him
a holy determination to examine his master's table-drawers and pockets,
and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to
hear some disparagement attempted of this admirable servant; but that,
in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. Attorney-General's)
brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his (Mr.
Attorney-General's) father and mother. That, he called with confidence
on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the evidence of these two
witnesses, coupled with the documents of their discovering that would be
produced, would show the prisoner to have been furnished with lists of
his Majesty's forces, and of their disposition and preparation, both by
sea and land, and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed
such information to a hostile power. That, these lists could not be
proved to be in the prisoner's handwriting; but that it was all the
same; that, indeed, it was rather the better for the prosecution, as
showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the proof
would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged
in these pernicious missions, within a few weeks before the date of the
very first action fought between the British troops and the Americans.
That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they
were), and being a responsible jury (as _they_ knew they were), must
positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether
they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their
pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying
their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could endure the notion
of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that
there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon
pillows at all, unless the prisoner's head was taken off. That head
Mr. Attorney-General concluded by demanding of them, in the name of
everything he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the faith
of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as
good as dead and gone.

When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if
a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in
anticipation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the
unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box.

Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader's lead, examined the
patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul was
exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had described it to be--perhaps, if
it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble bosom
of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the
wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr.
Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting
opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court.

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation.
What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn't
precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody's.
Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very
distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors'
prison? Didn't see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors'
prison?--Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three
times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever
been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell
downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at
dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who
committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true?
Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live by play? Not
more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes.
Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a
very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets?
No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more
about the lists? No. Had not procured them himself, for instance? No.
Expect to get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular government
pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear
no. Swear that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheer
patriotism? None whatever.

The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a
great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith and
simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais
packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him.
He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of
charity--never thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of
the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In arranging
his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists to these in the
prisoner's pockets, over and over again. He had taken these lists from
the drawer of the prisoner's desk. He had not put them there first. He
had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French gentlemen
at Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and
Boulogne. He loved his country, and couldn't bear it, and had given
information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver tea-pot;
he had been maligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it turned out to be
only a plated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight years;
that was merely a coincidence. He didn't call it a particularly curious
coincidence; most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it a
curious coincidence that true patriotism was _his_ only motive too. He
was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him.

The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. Jarvis
Lorry.

"Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson's bank?"

"I am."

"On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and
seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London and
Dover by the mail?"

"It did."

"Were there any other passengers in the mail?"

"Two."

"Did they alight on the road in the course of the night?"

"They did."

"Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?"

"I cannot undertake to say that he was."

"Does he resemble either of these two passengers?"

"Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so
reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that."

"Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as
those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to
render it unlikely that he was one of them?"

"No."

"You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?"

"No."

"So at least you say he may have been one of them?"

"Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been--like
myself--timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous
air."

"Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry?"

"I certainly have seen that."

"Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your
certain knowledge, before?"

"I have."

"When?"

"I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the
prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and made the
voyage with me."

"At what hour did he come on board?"

"At a little after midnight."

"In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board
at that untimely hour?"

"He happened to be the only one."

"Never mind about 'happening,' Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger who
came on board in the dead of the night?"

"He was."

"Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion?"

"With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here."

"They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner?"

"Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and
I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore."

"Miss Manette!"

The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now
turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and
kept her hand drawn through his arm.

"Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner."

To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was
far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd.
Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all
the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him
to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs
before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts
to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour
rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again.

"Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where?"

"On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the same
occasion."

"You are the young lady just now referred to?"

"O! most unhappily, I am!"

The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice
of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: "Answer the questions put
to you, and make no remark upon them."

"Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that
passage across the Channel?"

"Yes, sir."

"Recall it."

In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: "When the
gentleman came on board--"

"Do you mean the prisoner?" inquired the Judge, knitting his brows.

"Yes, my Lord."

"Then say the prisoner."

"When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father," turning
her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, "was much fatigued
and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was
afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the
deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take
care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four.
The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could
shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than I had done. I
had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would
set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed
great gentleness and kindness for my father's state, and I am sure he
felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together."

"Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone?"

"No."

"How many were with him?"

"Two French gentlemen."

"Had they conferred together?"

"They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was
necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat."

"Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists?"

"Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don't know what
papers."

"Like these in shape and size?"

"Possibly, but indeed I don't know, although they stood whispering very
near to me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the
light of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, and they
spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that
they looked at papers."

"Now, to the prisoner's conversation, Miss Manette."

"The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me--which arose out
of my helpless situation--as he was kind, and good, and useful to my
father. I hope," bursting into tears, "I may not repay him by doing him
harm to-day."

Buzzing from the blue-flies.

"Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that
you give the evidence which it is your duty to give--which you must
give--and which you cannot escape from giving--with great unwillingness,
he is the only person present in that condition. Please to go on."

"He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and
difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was
therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business
had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals,
take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long
time to come."

"Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular."

"He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said
that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on
England's part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George
Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the
Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said
laughingly, and to beguile the time."

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in
a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be
unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully
anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when
she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon
the counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same
expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority
of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness,
when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous
heresy about George Washington.

Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it
necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady's
father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly.

"Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?"

"Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or
three years and a half ago."

"Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, or
speak to his conversation with your daughter?"

"Sir, I can do neither."

"Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do
either?"

He answered, in a low voice, "There is."

"Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without
trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette?"

He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, "A long imprisonment."

"Were you newly released on the occasion in question?"

"They tell me so."

"Have you no remembrance of the occasion?"

"None. My mind is a blank, from some time--I cannot even say what
time--when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the
time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter
here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored
my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become
familiar. I have no remembrance of the process."

Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat down
together.

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being
to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotter untracked,
in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and
got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did
not remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more,
to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a witness
was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required,
in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison-and-dockyard town,
waiting for another person. The prisoner's counsel was cross-examining
this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner
on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time
been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a
little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening
this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great
attention and curiosity at the prisoner.

"You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?"

The witness was quite sure.

"Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?"

Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken.

"Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there," pointing
to him who had tossed the paper over, "and then look well upon the
prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?"

Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly
if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise,
not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought
into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside
his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became
much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner's
counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned
friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no; but he
would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might
happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen
this illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so
confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash
this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to
useless lumber.

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his
fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr.
Stryver fitted the prisoner's case on the jury, like a compact suit
of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and
traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest
scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas--which he certainly did look
rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner,
and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false
swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family
affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his making
those passages across the Channel--though what those affairs were, a
consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbade him,
even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped
and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they
had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent
gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman
and young lady so thrown together;--with the exception of that
reference to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and
impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke.
How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this
attempt to practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies
and fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-General had made the most of it;
how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous
character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the
State Trials of this country were full. But, there my Lord interposed
(with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could
not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions.

Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next to
attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole suit of clothes Mr.
Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsad and
Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the
prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning
the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole
decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the prisoner.

And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again.

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court,
changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement.
While his teamed friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him,
whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced
anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and
grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat,
and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion
in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; this one man
sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put
on just as it had happened to light on his head after its removal, his
hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all
day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him
a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he
undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness,
when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the
lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would
hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the
observation to his next neighbour, and added, "I'd hold half a guinea
that _he_ don't get no law-work to do. Don't look like the sort of one
to get any, do he?"

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he
appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette's head dropped upon
her father's breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly:
"Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out.
Don't you see she will fall!"

There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much
sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress to
him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown
strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering or
brooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a heavy cloud,
ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a
moment, spoke, through their foreman.

They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with George
Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that they were not agreed,
but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward,
and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in
the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumoured that the
jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get
refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the dock, and sat
down.

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out,
now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry: who, in the slackened interest,
could easily get near him.

"Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the
way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don't be a moment
behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You
are the quickest messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long
before I can."

Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in
acknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton came up
at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm.

"How is the young lady?"

"She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and she
feels the better for being out of court."

"I'll tell the prisoner so. It won't do for a respectable bank gentleman
like you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know."

Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point
in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar.
The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, all
eyes, ears, and spikes.

"Mr. Darnay!"

The prisoner came forward directly.

"You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She
will do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation."

"I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so
for me, with my fervent acknowledgments?"

"Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it."

Mr. Carton's manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood,
half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against the bar.

"I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks."

"What," said Carton, still only half turned towards him, "do you expect,
Mr. Darnay?"

"The worst."

"It's the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their
withdrawing is in your favour."

Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no
more: but left them--so like each other in feature, so unlike each other
in manner--standing side by side, both reflected in the glass above
them.

An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and-rascal crowded
passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale.
The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after taking that
refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide
of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along
with them.

"Jerry! Jerry!" Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he got
there.

"Here, sir! It's a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir!"

Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. "Quick! Have you got
it?"

"Yes, sir."

Hastily written on the paper was the word "ACQUITTED."

"If you had sent the message, 'Recalled to Life,' again," muttered
Jerry, as he turned, "I should have known what you meant, this time."

He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else,
until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for, the crowd came pouring out
with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz
swept into the street as if the baffled blue-flies were dispersing in
search of other carrion.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: A Disappointment Charles Darnay is charged with shuttling back and forth between France and England in order to spy. John Barsad, who was his friend, is the chief witness against him. Darnay was allegedly involved in traitorous activities as far back as five years ago, during the outbreak of the American Revolution. Mr. Lorry is called to give evidence against Charles Darnay, and he identifies Darnay as the man who came on board in the middle of the night at Calais on the way from France to England. Miss Manette is called and, though she identifies him, she strongly regrets that her evidence could bring him any harm. Lucie testifies that the prisoner confided in her that he was traveling under an assumed name on a delicate business. Dr. Manette testifies that he also recognizes the man. The case is thrown into uproar and made fruitless, however, when a Mr. Carton reveals himself. Carton looks so much like Darnay that a positive identification of the defendant is made impossible. Darnay's defense counsel, Mr. Stryver, shows that Barsad was himself a traitor. The jury deliberates for a long time. Lucie faints and is taken out of the courthouse. Mr. Lorry tells Jerry to remain to take the verdict to Tellson's. Jerry receives a piece of paper on which it is written that Darnay is acquitted


prompt:
Chapter: IV. Congratulatory

From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the
human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when
Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor
for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr.
Charles Darnay--just released--congratulating him on his escape from
death.

It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise
in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the
shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him
twice, without looking again: even though the opportunity of observation
had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and
to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent
reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long
lingering agony, would always--as on the trial--evoke this condition
from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of
itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those
unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual
Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three
hundred miles away.

Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from
his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his
misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice,
the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial
influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could
recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few
and slight, and she believed them over.

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned
to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little
more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout,
loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing
way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and
conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life.

He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his
late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean
out of the group: "I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr.
Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the
less likely to succeed on that account."

"You have laid me under an obligation to you for life--in two senses,"
said his late client, taking his hand.

"I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as
another man's, I believe."

It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, "Much better," Mr. Lorry
said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested
object of squeezing himself back again.

"You think so?" said Mr. Stryver. "Well! you have been present all day,
and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too."

"And as such," quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had
now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered
him out of it--"as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up
this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr.
Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out."

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver; "I have a night's work to
do yet. Speak for yourself."

"I speak for myself," answered Mr. Lorry, "and for Mr. Darnay, and for
Miss Lucie, and--Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for us all?"
He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father.

His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at
Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust,
not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his
thoughts had wandered away.

"My father," said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his.

He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her.

"Shall we go home, my father?"

With a long breath, he answered "Yes."

The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the
impression--which he himself had originated--that he would not be
released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the
passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle,
and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning's interest of
gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it.
Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into
the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter
departed in it.

Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back
to the robing-room. Another person, who had not joined the group, or
interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning
against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled
out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now
stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement.

"So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now?"

Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton's part in the day's
proceedings; nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and was none the
better for it in appearance.

"If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the
business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business
appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay."

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, "You have mentioned that before,
sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We
have to think of the House more than ourselves."

"_I_ know, _I_ know," rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. "Don't be
nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt: better,
I dare say."

"And indeed, sir," pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, "I really don't
know what you have to do with the matter. If you'll excuse me, as very
much your elder, for saying so, I really don't know that it is your
business."

"Business! Bless you, _I_ have no business," said Mr. Carton.

"It is a pity you have not, sir."

"I think so, too."

"If you had," pursued Mr. Lorry, "perhaps you would attend to it."

"Lord love you, no!--I shouldn't," said Mr. Carton.

"Well, sir!" cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference,
"business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir,
if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr.
Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance
for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir!
I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy
life.--Chair there!"

Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr.
Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson's. Carton,
who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed
then, and turned to Darnay:

"This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must
be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on
these street stones?"

"I hardly seem yet," returned Charles Darnay, "to belong to this world
again."

"I don't wonder at it; it's not so long since you were pretty far
advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly."

"I begin to think I _am_ faint."

"Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined, myself, while those
numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or
some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at."

Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill to
Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, they were
shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting
his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat
opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port
before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him.

"Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr.
Darnay?"

"I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so far
mended as to feel that."

"It must be an immense satisfaction!"

He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was a large
one.

"As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it.
It has no good in it for me--except wine like this--nor I for it. So we
are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are
not much alike in any particular, you and I."

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with
this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was
at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all.

"Now your dinner is done," Carton presently said, "why don't you call a
health, Mr. Darnay; why don't you give your toast?"

"What health? What toast?"

"Why, it's on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I'll
swear it's there."

"Miss Manette, then!"

"Miss Manette, then!"

Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton
flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered to
pieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another.

"That's a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!"
he said, filling his new goblet.

A slight frown and a laconic "Yes," were the answer.

"That's a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it
feel? Is it worth being tried for one's life, to be the object of such
sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?"

Again Darnay answered not a word.

"She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Not
that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was."

The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this
disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the
strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him
for it.

"I neither want any thanks, nor merit any," was the careless rejoinder.
"It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don't know why I did
it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question."

"Willingly, and a small return for your good offices."

"Do you think I particularly like you?"

"Really, Mr. Carton," returned the other, oddly disconcerted, "I have
not asked myself the question."

"But ask yourself the question now."

"You have acted as if you do; but I don't think you do."

"_I_ don't think I do," said Carton. "I begin to have a very good
opinion of your understanding."

"Nevertheless," pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, "there is
nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our
parting without ill-blood on either side."

Carton rejoining, "Nothing in life!" Darnay rang. "Do you call the whole
reckoning?" said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative, "Then
bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at
ten."

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night.
Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of a threat
of defiance in his manner, and said, "A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think
I am drunk?"

"I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton."

"Think? You know I have been drinking."

"Since I must say so, I know it."

"Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I
care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me."

"Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better."

"May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don't let your sober face elate you,
however; you don't know what it may come to. Good night!"

When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a
glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in it.

"Do you particularly like the man?" he muttered, at his own image; "why
should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing
in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have
made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you
what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change
places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as
he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and
have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow."

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few
minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the
table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Congratulatory Dr. Manette, Lucie, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defense, and Mr. Stryver all congratulate Darnay on his escape from death. Dr. Manette's face is clouded over by the negative emotions caused by being cross-examined about being imprisoned. The Manettes depart in a hackney-coach, and a slightly drunk Mr. Carton asks to be allowed to speak to Mr. Darnay. They dine in a tavern, and Mr. Carton proposes a toast to Miss Manette. After Darnay leaves, Mr. Carton looks at himself in a mirror and reflects that he does not like Darnay because he too much resembles what Carton himself could have been, had Carton not been so dissolute. He hates Darnay for inspiring Miss Manette to look at him with such compassion


prompt:
Chapter: V. The Jackal

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is
the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate
statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow
in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a
perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration.
The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other
learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr.
Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative
practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the
drier parts of the legal race.

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had
begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which
he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite,
specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself towards the
visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's Bench, the
florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of
the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from
among a rank garden-full of flaring companions.

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib
man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that
faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is
among the most striking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments.
But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more
business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at its
pith and marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney
Carton, he always had his points at his fingers' ends in the morning.

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's great
ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas,
might have floated a king's ship. Stryver never had a case in hand,
anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring
at the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, and even there
they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was
rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily
to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get about,
among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton
would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he
rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity.

"Ten o'clock, sir," said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to
wake him--"ten o'clock, sir."

"_What's_ the matter?"

"Ten o'clock, sir."

"What do you mean? Ten o'clock at night?"

"Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you."

"Oh! I remember. Very well, very well."

After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man
dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes,
he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple,
and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King's
Bench-walk and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers.

The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone
home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on,
and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He
had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which
may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of
Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of
Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age.

"You are a little late, Memory," said Stryver.

"About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour later."

They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers,
where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in
the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon
it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons.

"You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney."

"Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day's client; or
seeing him dine--it's all one!"

"That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon the
identification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you?"

"I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should have
been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck."

Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch.

"You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work."

Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining
room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a towel
or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing them
out, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down
at the table, and said, "Now I am ready!"

"Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory," said Mr. Stryver,
gaily, as he looked among his papers.

"How much?"

"Only two sets of them."

"Give me the worst first."

"There they are, Sydney. Fire away!"

The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the
drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn table
proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to
his hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint, but each in
a different way; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in
his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some
lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face,
so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he
stretched out for his glass--which often groped about, for a minute or
more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times, the
matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on
him to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the
jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp headgear as
no words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by his anxious
gravity.

At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and
proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution,
made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal
assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his
hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then
invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh application
to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal;
this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not
disposed of until the clocks struck three in the morning.

"And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch," said Mr.
Stryver.

The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming
again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied.

"You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses
to-day. Every question told."

"I always am sound; am I not?"

"I don't gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to
it and smooth it again."

With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied.

"The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School," said 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 exercises 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 furnace in which sustained endeavour
was forged, and the 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
your 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?"

"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 always
nowhere."

"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 passing, 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 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 to-day and to-night; who's your pretty witness?"

"The picturesque doctor's daughter, Miss Manette."

"_She_ pretty?"

"Is she not?"

"No."

"Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court!"

"Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge
of beauty? She was a golden-haired doll!"

"Do you know, Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes,
and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face: "do you know, I rather
thought, at the time, that you sympathised with the golden-haired doll,
and were quick to see what happened to the golden-haired doll?"

"Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within a
yard or two of a man's nose, he can see it without a perspective-glass.
I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I'll have no more drink;
I'll get to bed."

When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light
him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy
windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the
dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a
lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round
before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and
the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city.

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still
on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the
wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and
perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries
from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the
fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight.
A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of
houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its
pillow was wet with wasted tears.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of
good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise,
incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight
on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Jackal Mr. Stryver is prone to alcoholism, and he is a drinking companion of Mr. Carton's--they had been fellow students in Paris. Mr. Stryver, despite all of his capacity to push himself ahead, became a much more successful lawyer when Mr. Carton began working on and helping summarize his documents for him. Thus Carton became Stryver's jackal. When Stryver talks about how pretty Miss Manette is, Carton denies it, claiming she is nothing but a blond "doll. Carton leaves Stryver's house and returns to his own, crying himself to sleep. He is haunted by the honorable glories that once were available to him but are now out of his reach