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1The Preparation When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal
2George Hotel opened the coach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from
3London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon. By that time, there was only one
4adventurous traveller left be congratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside
5destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity,
6was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle of
7shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. "There will be a packet to Calais,
8tomorrow, drawer?" "Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tide will serve pretty nicely
9at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, sir?" "I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber."
10"And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot water to
11Concord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir
12about there, now, for Concord!" The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers
13by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of
14the Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varieties of men came out of
15it. Consequently, another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all loitering by accident at
16various points of the road between the Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a
17brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets,
18passed along on his way to his breakfast. The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in
19brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the
20meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for his portrait. Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a
21hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, as though it pitted its
22gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of
23it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though
24plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be
25presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen,
26though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the
27neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and
28quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in
29years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in
30his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in
31Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand
32clothes, come easily off and on. Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped
33off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it: "I wish
34accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she
35may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Please to let me know." "Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir?"
36"Yes." "Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwards
37betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company's House." "Yes. We are quite a
38French House, as well as an English one." "Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, sir?"
39"Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we--since I--came last from France." "Indeed, sir? That was before my time
40here, sir. Before our people's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir." "I believe so." "But I
41would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak
42of fifteen years ago?" "You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth." "Indeed,
43sir!" Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from
44his right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as
45from an observatory or watchtower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages. When Mr. Lorry had finished
46his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the
47beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones
48tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and
49thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory
50flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the
51sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward:
52particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever,
53sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a
54lamplighter. As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals clear enough to allow the
55French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it
56was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was
57busily digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals. A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red
58coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and
59had just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in
60an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the
61narrow street, and rumbled into the inn-yard. He set down his glass untouched. "This is Mam'selle!" said he. In a very
62few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the
63gentleman from Tellson's. "So soon?" Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none then, and
64was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience. The
65gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his
66odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment. It was a large, dark room,
67furnished in a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled,
68until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if they were
69buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out.
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