a honest tradesman, and not occupy your female mind with
calculations when he took to his trade or when he didn’t. A
honouring and obeying wife would let his trade alone altogether.
Call yourself a religious woman? If you’re a religious woman, give
me a irreligious one! You have no more nat’ral sense of duty than
the bed of this here Thames river has of a pile, and similarly it
must be knocked into you.”
The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and
terminated in the honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay-soiled
boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After taking a
timid peep at him lying on his back, with his rusty hands under his
head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell asleep again.
There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else.
Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an
iron pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs.
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Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms of her saying
Grace. He was brushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off
with his son to pursue his ostensible calling.
Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his
father’s side along sunny and crowded Fleet Street, was a very
different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, running
home through the darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer.
His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone
with the night—in which particulars it is not improbable that he
had compeers in Fleet Street and the City of London, that fine
morning.
“Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to
keep at arm’s length and to have the stool well between them:
“what’s a Resurrection-Man?”
Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he
answered, “How should I know?”
“I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless boy.
“Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and
lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play. “he’s a tradesman.”
“What’s his goods, father?” asked the brisk Young Jerry.
“His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his
mind, “is a branch of Scientific goods.”
“Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father?” asked the lively boy.
“I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher.
“Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I’m
quite growed up!”
Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and
moral way. “It depends on how you dewelop your talents. Be
careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you
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can help to nobody, and there’s no telling at the present time what
you may not come to be fit for.” As Young Jerry, thus encouraged,
went on a few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of
the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself: “Jerry, you honest
tradesman, there’s hope wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you,
and a recompense to you for his mother.”
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A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter XXI
KNITTING
T here had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-
shop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’clock in the
morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows
had descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine.
Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it
would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at
this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence on
the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No
vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of
Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark,
lay hidden in the dregs of it.
This had been the third morning in succession, on which there
had been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defa"};
