Page 556 - A TALE OF TWO CITIES

A Tale of Two Cities

chemist’s shop, which the owner was closing with his own
hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, up-
hill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man.
Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted

him at his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him.
‘Whew!’ the chemist whistled softly, as he read it. ‘Hi! hi!
hi!’
Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said:
‘For you, citizen?’
‘For me.’
‘You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen?
You know the consequences of mixing them?’
‘Perfectly.’
Certain small packets were made and given to him. He
put them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat,
counted out the money for them, and deliberately left the
shop. ‘There is nothing more to do,’ said he, glancing
upward at the moon, ‘until to-morrow. I can’t sleep.’
It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he
said these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor
was it more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was
the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and
struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his
road and saw its end.

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