XI. A Companion Picture
"Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or morning, to hisjackal; "mix another bowl of punch; I have something to say to you."
Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before,and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, makinga grand clearance among Mr. Stryver's papers before the setting inof the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryverarrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of untilNovember should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, andbring grist to the mill again.
Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so muchapplication. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull himthrough the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had precededthe towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulledhis turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it atintervals for the last six hours.
"Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?" said Stryver the portly, withhis hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he lay onhis back.
"I am."
"Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rathersurprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite asshrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry."
"_Do_ you?"
"Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?"
"I don't feel disposed to say much. Who is she?"
"Guess."
"Do I know her?"
"Guess."
"I am not going to guess, at five o'clock in the morning, with my brainsfrying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you must askme to dinner."
"Well then, I'll tell you," said Stryver, coming slowly into a sittingposture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you,because you are such an insensible dog."
"And you," returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, "are such asensitive and poetical spirit--"
"Come!" rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, "though I don't preferany claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), stillI am a tenderer sort of fellow than _you_."
"You are a luckier, if you mean that."
"I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of more--more--"
"Say gallantry, while you are about it," suggested Carton.
"Well! I'll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man," said Stryver,inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, "who cares more tobe agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better howto be agreeable, in a woman's society, than you do."
"Go on," said Sydney Carton.
"No; but before I go on," said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullyingway, "I'll have this out with you. You've been at Doctor Manette's houseas much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of yourmoroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen andhangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you,Sydney!"
"It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, tobe ashamed of anything," returned Sydney; "you ought to be much obligedto me."
"You shall not get off in that way," rejoined Stryver, shouldering therejoinder at him; "no, Sydney, it's my duty to tell you--and I tell youto your face to do you good--that you are a devilish ill-conditionedfellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow."
Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed.
"Look at me!" said Stryver, squaring himself; "I have less need to makemyself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances.Why do I do it?"
"I never saw you do it yet," muttered Carton.
"I do it because it's politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! Iget on."
"You don't get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,"answered Carton, with a careless air; "I wish you would keep to that. Asto me--will you never understand that I am incorrigible?"
He asked the question with some appearance of scorn.
"You have no business to be incorrigible," was his friend's answer,delivered in no very soothing tone.
"I have no business to be, at all, that I know of," said Sydney Carton."Who is the lady?"
"Now, don't let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable,Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendlinessfor the disclosure he was about to make, "because I know you don't meanhalf you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. Imake this little preface, because you once mentioned the young lady tome in slighting terms."
"I did?"
"Certainly; and in these chambers."
Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend;drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend.
"You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The younglady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness ordelicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been alittle resentful of your employing such a designation; but you are not.You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when Ithink of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion ofa picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece of musicof mine, who had no ear for music."
Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers,looking at his friend.
"Now you know all about it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care aboutfortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind toplease myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. Shewill have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man,and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her,but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?"
Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I beastonished?"
"You approve?"
Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I not approve?"
"Well!" said his friend Stryver, "you take it more easily than I fanciedyou would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you wouldbe; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that yourancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have hadenough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it; Ifeel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feelsinclined to go to it (when he doesn't, he can stay away), and I feelthat Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do mecredit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want tosay a word to _you_ about _your_ prospects. You are in a bad way, youknow; you really are in a bad way. You don't know the value of money,you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor;you really ought to think about a nurse."
The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice asbig as he was, and four times as offensive.
"Now, let me recommend you," pursued Stryver, "to look it in the face.I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the face,you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care ofyou. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, norunderstanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out somerespectable woman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way,or lodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day. That's thekind of thing for _you_. Now think of it, Sydney."
"I'll think of it," said Sydney.
A Tale of Two Cities Page 17
