A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club) by Charles Dickens Page A

injuries of an acute description on passing boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic in Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else in Fleet-street.
    The head of one of the regular in-door messengers attached to Tellson’s establishment was put through the door, and the word was given:
    ‘Porter wanted!’
    ‘Hooray, father! Here’s an early job to begin with!’
    Having thus given his parent God speed, Young Jerry seated himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father had been chewing, and cogitated.
    ‘Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!’ muttered young Jerry. ‘Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don’t get no iron rust here!’

CHAPTER 2
    A Sight
    ‘You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?’ said one of the oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger.
    ‘Ye-es, sir,’ returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. ‘I do know the Bailey.’
    ‘Just so. And you know Mr Lorry.’
    ‘I know Mr Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better,’ said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment in question, ‘than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey.’
    ‘Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the doorkeeper this note for Mr Lorry. He will then let you in.’
    ‘Into the court, sir?’
    ‘Into the court.’
    Mr Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to interchange the inquiry, ‘What do you think of this?’
    ‘Am I to wait in the court, sir?’ he asked, as the result of that conference.
    ‘I am going to tell you. The doorkeeper will pass the note to Mr Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr Lorry’s attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain there until he wants you.’
    ‘Is that all, sir?’
    ‘That’s all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him you are there.’
    As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, Mr Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the blotting-paper stage, remarked:
    ‘I suppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning?’
    ‘Treason!’
    ‘That’s quartering,’ said Jerry. ‘Barbarous!’
    ‘It is the law,’ remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised spectacles upon him, ‘It is the law.’
    ‘It’s hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard enough to kill him, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.’
    ‘Not at all,’ returned the ancient clerk. ‘Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care of itself. I give you that advice.’
    ‘It’s the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,’ said Jerry. ‘I leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.’
    ‘Well, well,’ said the old clerk; ‘we all have our various ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry ways. Here is the letter. Go along.’
    Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal deference than he made an outward show of, ‘You are a lean old one, too’, made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, and went his way.
    They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villany were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight