notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop was not visible. he was not missed; for, nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see only madame defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come.