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practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the
drier parts of the legal race.

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver
had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on
which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their
favourite, specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself
towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's
Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen,
bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its
way at the sun from among a rank garden-full of flaring companions.

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib
man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that
faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is
among the most striking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments.
But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more
business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at
its pith and marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with
Sydney Carton, he always had his points at his fingers' ends in the
morning.

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's great
ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas,
might have floated a king's ship. Stryver never had a case in hand,
anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring
at the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, and even there
they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was
rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily
to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get about,
among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton
would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he
rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity.

"Ten o'clock, sir," said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to
wake him--"ten o'clock, sir."

"_What's_ the matter?"

"Ten o'clock, sir."

"What do you mean? Ten o'clock at night?"

"Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you."

"Oh! I remember. Very well, very well."

After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterously
combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he got up,
tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, and,
having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King's Bench-walk
and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers.

The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home,
and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on,
and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease.
He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes,
which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait

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