A Tale of Two Cities by Dave Mckay, Charles Dickens (easy readers .txt) 📖

outside the Good Old Brutus pub, not far from where the king used to live. She liked it better than the other places that they had passed. It still had a lot of red hats, but not as many as in the others. Asking Mr. Cruncher what he thought, and seeing that he agreed to it, Miss Pross went into the Good Old Brutus, joined by her protecter.

They showed little interest in the smoky lights; in the people, some with pipes in their mouths, playing with old cards and yellow dominoes; in the man without a shirt, covered with black dust, who was reading a newspaper out for others to hear; in the weapons that people were wearing, or that they had put on tables; or in the two or three people who were sleeping in coats covered with long rough hair that so many people liked to wear at that time, which made them look like sleeping bears or dogs. Instead, these two people from a different country walked up to the counter and made movements to show what they wanted.

As their wine was being measured out, a man got up to leave another man in the corner. As he left, he turned toward Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her than Miss Pross let out a loud cry and hit her hands together.

A second later, everyone in the room was on their feet. What they most expected to see was that someone had been killed because of an argument. But all they saw were a man and a woman looking at each other. The man looked to be a true French countryman, and the woman was clearly English.

What the people of Good Old Brutus had to say quite loudly on seeing this, would have been like Greek to Miss Pross and her protecter even if they had been all ears. But in their surprise they had no ears at all for what the others were saying. It must be said that not only was Miss Pross surprised and confused, but Mr. Cruncher was also very surprised, but in his case it was for what seemed to be a different reason.

"What is your problem?” asked the man who had made Miss Pross cry out. He sounded angry, but was talking softly, and in English.

"Oh Solomon! My sweet Solomon!" cried Miss Pross, hitting her hands together again. "After not seeing you or hearing from you for so long, to think I should find you here!"

"Don't call me Solomon. Do you want to have me killed?” asked the man, who was clearly afraid.

"My brother, my brother!" cried Miss Pross, with tears running down her face. "Have I ever been so hard with you that you could ask me such a cruel question?"

"Then hold your tongue," said Solomon, "and come outside if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine and come out. And who is this man?"

Miss Pross, shaking her loving and sad head at her brother, who was not loving in any way, said through her tears, "Mr. Cruncher."

"Let him come out too," said Solomon. "Does he think I am a ghost?"

To judge by Mr. Cruncher's looks, he did. But he said not a word, and Miss Pross found it difficult to see through her tears to fish in her handbag for money to pay for her wine. As she did this, Solomon turned to the people in Good Old Brutus to tell them in French what was happening. Whatever it was, it was enough to send them all back to what they had been doing before.

"Now," said Solomon, stopping at a dark street corner, "what do you want?"

"How cruel of a brother that I have always loved," cried Miss Pross, "to talk like that to me, and to show no love toward me."

"There. Stop it! There," said Solomon, touching Miss Pross's lips with his own. "Now are you happy?"

Miss Pross only shook her head and cried quietly.

"If you expected me to be surprised," said her brother, "I am not surprised. I knew you were here. I know about most people who are here. If you really do not want to put me in danger -- which I half believe you do -- go your way as quickly as you can, and let me go mine. I am busy. I have a government job here.

"My English brother Solomon," said Miss Pross sadly, lifting her tear-filled eyes, "who could have been a great leader in his own country, is working for a foreign country, and for a foreign country such as this one. I would almost have been happier to see the sweet boy lying in his..."

"You see!" cried her brother, stopping her. "I knew it. You want to see me dead. I will be arrested by my own sister, just when I was doing so well!"

"No, may God stop that from happening!" cried Miss Pross. "I would be happier never to see you again, Solomon, but I have always loved you and I always will. Just say one kind word to me, and tell me you're not angry with me, and I won't keep you any longer."

Good Miss Pross! As if their being separate had come from any wrong action on her part. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it to be true years ago, on that quiet corner in Soho, that this loved brother had used up her money and then left her!

He was saying a kind word now, but with less feeling than if he had been the innocent one and she the guilty (which is how it so often happens all over the world), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, without warning cut in with the following question:

"I say! Can I ask you one thing? Is your name John Solomon or Solomon John?"

This worker for the French government turned toward him with a quickly growing worry. He had not said a word before this.

"Out with it!" said Mr. Cruncher. "Tell us what you know.” (Which, by the way, is more than he could do himself.) "Is it John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. But I know you're John. So which of the two goes first? And the same with that name Pross. That wasn't your name over the water."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know all that I mean, because I can't call to mind what your name was, over the water."

"No?"

"No. But I know it was longer than Pross.” "Is that right?"

"Yes. T'other one's name was short like that. But I know you. You was a secret government witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that time?"

"Barsad," said another voice, cutting in.

"That's the name, for a thousand pounds!" cried Jerry.

The speaker who cut in was Sydney Carton. He had his hands in his pockets, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher's elbow as lazily as he would have stood at the Old Bailey itself.

"Don't be surprised, my good Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his surprise, last night. We agreed that I would not show myself until all was well or until I was needed. I am showing myself here now because I want to have a little talk with your brother. I wish your brother, Mr. Barsad, had a better job than working as a Sheep in the prisons."

Sheep was a special word used at that time for a spy who worked with the prison guards. The spy, in question whose skin was white, turned whiter, and asked Sydney how he had the confidence to...

"I'll tell you," said Sydney. "I saw you coming out of the court prison when I was studying the walls around it an hour or so ago. You have a face that is easily remembered, and I remember faces very well. I wanted to know why you had been there, and I had good reason, as you would know, for thinking that you could be partly to blame for something very bad which has just happened to a friend of mine. So I followed you into the wine shop, and I sat near you. It was easy to pick up from your proud talk, and what others were saying, just what your job was. Little by little, what I had learned by accident started to shape into a plan, Mr. Barsad."

"What plan?” the spy asked.

"It would be difficult, and could be dangerous to talk about it here. Could you help me by spending a few quiet minutes at the office of Tellson's Bank, for starters?"

"Are you going to try to hurt me if I don't?”

"Oh, did I say that?"

"What other reason would I have to go there?"

"Really, Mr. Barsad, if you don't know yourself, then I cannot tell you."

"Do you mean that you won't say, sir?” the spy asked, not knowing which way to go with this.

"You understand me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. No, I won't."

Carton's wildly confident way of talking worked well with his ability to see through a person, and would help him with what he was secretly planning, with such a man as he had to work with. He could see it, and he made the most of it.

"I told you so," said the spy, with an angry look at his sister. "If any trouble comes of this, it's your doing."

"Come, come, Mr. Barsad!" said Sydney confidently. "You should be thanking me. If it was not for my feelings for your sister, I would not be talking so nicely to you now about the plan I have which could help us both. Do you want to go with me to the bank?"

"Just to hear what you have to say. Yes, I'll go with you."

"I think we should first take your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in on your own; and because your protector knows Mr. Barsad, I will be asking him to come to Mr. Lorry's with us. Are we ready? Come then!"

A short time after that, and to the end of her life, Miss Pross remembered that, as she put her hand on Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, wanting him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a look in his eye and something in how he held his arm which was very different to his old foolish spirit, and which changed and lifted the man. At the time she was too busy fearing for her brother, who gave little reason for her loving him, and too busy listening to Sydney's friendly promises, to think about those changes in Sydney.

They left her at the corner of her street, and then Carton showed the way to Mr. Lorry's, which was only a few minutes' walk away. John Barsad, or should we say Solomon Pross, walked at his side.

Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting in front of a friendly fire in the fireplace... maybe looking into it to find a picture of that younger man from Tellsons, who had looked into the red coals at the King George at Dover, now a good many years in the past. He turned his head as they came in, and showed surprise on seeing the stranger.

"Miss Pross' brother, sir," said Sydney. "Mr. Barsad."

"Barsad?” repeated the old man. "Barsad? I've heard the name before... and seen the face."

"I told you that your face is easy to remember, Mr. Barsad," said Carton coolly. "Please sit down."

As he took a seat himself, Carton gave Mr. Lorry the piece of information he needed, by saying to him with an angry look, "Witness at my court case.” Mr. Lorry remembered at once, and showed an angry and almost sick look toward his new visitor.

"Miss Pross has told us that Mr. Barsad is the loving brother you have heard so much about," said Sydney. "And he doesn't argue with that. But I have worse news. Darnay has been arrested again."

The old man could not believe him. "What are you telling me? I left him safe and free just two hours ago. I was just about to return to him!"

"Arrested all the same. When did it happen, Mr. Barsad?"

"Just now, if it has happened."

"Mr. Barsad is the best one to tell us, sir," said Sydney. "I have it from his talk with a brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. His friend left the people who made the arrest at the prison gate, and he saw the gate open for them. There's no reason on earth to think he has not been taken."

Mr. Lorry's business eye could read by Sydney's face that it would be a waste of time to argue the point. He was confused, but he knew that he needed to control himself and just listen.

"Now I am hoping," said Carton to him, "that the name and effect of Doctor Manette may save him tomorrow... you did say he would