jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C.J.,
was satisfied that no plainer case could be.
Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a
formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that
failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him
to present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind.
Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from
the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s infancy was
still upon it. Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
f
A Tale of Two Cities
Soho while he was yet on St. Dunstan’s side of Temple Bar,
bursting in his full-blown way along the pavement, to the
jostlement of all weaker people, might have seen how safe and
strong he was.
His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at
Tellson’s and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the
Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the bank, and
reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he
pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled
down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and
shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat
at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to
his window as if that was ruled for figures too, and everything
under the clouds were a sum.
“Halloa!” said Mr. Stryver, “How do you do? I hope you are
well!”
It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big
for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that
old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance,
as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself,
magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective,
lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its
responsible waistcoat.
The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he
would recommend under the circumstances, “How do you do, Mr.
Stryver? How do you do, sir?” and shook hands. There was a
peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in
any clerk at Tellson’s who shook hands with a customer when the
House pervaded the air. He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
f
A Tale of Two Cities
who shook for Tellson & Co.
“Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?” asked Mr. Lorry, in
his business character.
“Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr.
Lorry; I have come for a private word.”
“Oh indeed!” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his
eye strayed to the House afar off.
“I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidently on
the desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there
appeared to be not half desk enough for him: “I am going to make
an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss
Manette, Mr. Lorry.”
“Oh dear me!” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at
his visitor dubiously.
“Oh dear me, sir?” repeated Stryver, drawing back. “Oh dear
you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?”
“My meaning,” answered the man of business, “is, of course,
friendly and a"};
