CHAPTER XI. A COMPANION PICTURE"'Sydney,'said Mr. Stryver, on that selfsame night or morning, to his jackal,"'makes 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 making a grand clearance among mr stryver's papers before the setting in of the long vacation the clearance was effected at last the stryver arrears were handsomely fetched up everything was got rid of until november should come with its fogs atmospheric and fogs legal and bring grist to the mill again sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much application it had taken a deal of extra wet toweling to pull him through the night a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded the toweling and he was in a very damaged condition as he now pulled his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals for the last six hours are you mixing that other bowl of punch said stryver the portly with his hands in his waist band, glancing round from the sofa where he lay on his back.
I am. Now look here, I'm going to tell you something that will rather surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as shrewd 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'm not going to guess at five o'clock in the morning with my brains frying and sputtering in my head if you want me to guess you must ask me to dinner well then i'll tell you said stryver coming slowly into a sitting posture sidney i rather despair of making myself intelligible to you because you are such an insensible dog and you returned sidney busy concocting the punch are such a sensitive poetical spirit come rejoined stryver laughing boastfully though i don't prefer any claim to being the soul of romance for i hope i know better still i 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 to be agreeable who takes more pains to be agreeable who knows better how to 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 bullying way i'll have this out with you you've been at dr manette's house as much as i have or more than i have why i have been ashamed of your moroseness there your manners have been of that silent and sullen and hang-dog kind that upon my life and soul i've been ashamed of you sydney it should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar to be ashamed of anything returned sydney you ought to be much obliged to me you should not get off in that way rejoined stryver shouldering the rejoinder at him no sydney it is my duty to tell you and i tell you to your face to do you good that you are a devilish, ill-conditioned fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow.'Sidney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed."'Look at me,'said Stryver, squaring himself."'I have less need to make myself 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 i get 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 as to 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 a 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 friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make because i know you don't mean half you say and if you meant it all it would be of no importance i make this little preface because you once mentioned the young lady to me 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 young lady is miss manette if you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind of way sydney i might have been a little resentful of your employing such a designation but you are not you want that sense altogether therefore i am no more annoyed when i think of the expression than i should be annoyed by a man's opinion of a picture of mine who had no eye for pictures or of a piece of music of mine who had no ear for music Sidney Carton drank the punch at a great rate, drank it by bumpers, looking at his friend."'Now you know all about it, Sid,'said Mr. Stryver."'I don't care about fortune. She is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself. On the whole I think I can afford to please myself.
She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some dis—' 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 be astonished 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 fancied you would and you are less mercenary on my behalf than i thought you would be though to be sure you know well enough by this time that your ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will yes sidney i have had enough of this style of life with no other as a change from it i feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels inclined to go to it when he doesn't he can stay away and i feel that miss manette will tell well in any station and will always do me credit so i have made up my mind and now sidney old boy i want to say a word to you about your prospects you are an bad way you know 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 as big 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 of you never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society nor understanding of it a tact for it find out somebody find out some respectable woman with a little property somebody in the landlady way or lodging letting way and marry her against a rainy day that's the kind of thing for you now think of it sidney i'll think of it said sidney End of Book Two, Chapter Eleven. Recording by Paul Adams. www.yaunguy.com