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 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, Sydney, I have
had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change iron' 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, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to you about your
prospects. You are in a 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, nor 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, Sydney .'
`I'll think of it,' said Sydney .
CHAPTER XII
MR. STRYVER having made up his mind to that
magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make
her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After
some mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be
as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange at
their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before
Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary.
As to the strength of his case, he had not
a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to' the verdict. Argued with the jury
on substantial worldly grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into
account--it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself
for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the
defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After
trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be.
Accordingly, Mr.
Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss
Manette to
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