`I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?'

`I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,' said Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed.

`Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,' pursued Carton, `you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellow students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we didn't get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I was always--nowhere.'

`Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always driving and riving and shouldering and pressing, to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It's a gloomy thing, however, to talk about one's Own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some other direction before I go.'

`Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,' said Stryver, holding up his glass. `Are you turned in a pleasant direction?'

Apparently not, for he became gloomy again.

`Pretty witness,' he muttered, looking down into his glass. `I have had enough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who's your pretty witness?'

`The picturesque doctor's daughter, Miss Manette.'