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Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the

wine-shop was not visible. He was not missed; for, nobody who

crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him,

nobody wondered to see only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding

over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered small

coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their

original impress as the small coinage of humanity from whose

ragged pockets they had come.

A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were

perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as

they looked in at every place, high and low, from the king's

palace to the criminal's gaol. Games at cards languished, players

at dominoes musingly built towers with them, drinkers drew

figures on the tables with spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge

herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick,

and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible a long way

off.