Charles Dickens' London: A Tale of Two Cities

Tellson's Bank is indisputably that of Child and Co., rebuilt on the old site, but "an old-fashioned place even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, and very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners of the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness."

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Outside it sat Mr. Cruncher, "the odd job man, occasional porter and messenger," who served as a living sign of the House, who lodged in Hanging-sword Alley, Whitefriars, had a "grisly urchin of twelve," and who at intervals went out towards evening upon mysterious fishing expeditions, which generally ended in some grave-yard and a resurrection job.

Jerry Cruncher sat on a wooden stool "beneath the Banking House window that was nearest Temple Bar," and "on this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleet Street and the Temple, as the Bar itself - and was almost as ill-looking."

"At a quiet street corner, not far from Soho Square, Dr. Manette lodged on two floors of a large still house" where he received "such patients as his old reputation, and its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him," and where Sydney Carton used to visit, but "never shone; always the same moody and morose lawyer"; and it was from these rooms that Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married.

At the Old Bailey, Charles Darnay was tried for high-treason and acquitted, at whose trial Miss Manette appeared as a witness, exciting the admiration of the whole Court, and the extraordinary likeness between the accused and Sydney Carton was made so apparent.

Carton, a dissolute barrister and Junior at the Bar, was Mr. Stryver's (the Old Bailey counsel's) "jackal "; but it will be remembered how nobly he redeemed himself by saving Darnay from the guillotine.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

Next: Charles Dickens' London: Great Expectations