abstract：`Lookatme!'saidStryver,squaringhimself:`Ihavelessneedtomakemyselfagreeablethanyouhave,beingmoreindep

`Look at me!' said Stryver, squaring himself: `I have less need to make myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances. Why do I do it?'

`I never saw you do it yet,' muttered Carton.

`I do it because it's politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! I get on.'

`You don't get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,' answered Carton, with a careless air; `I wish you would keep to that. As to me--will you never understand that I am incorrigible?'

He asked the question with some appearance of scorn.

`You have no business to be incorrigible,' was his friend's answer, delivered in no very soothing tone.

`I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,' said Sydney Carton. `Who is the lady?'

`Now, don't let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, Sydney,' said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, `because I know you don't mean half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I make this little preface, because,you once mentioned the young lady to me in slighting terms.