"You make light of the obligation," returned Darnay, "but I will not quarrel with your light answer."
"Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he'll tell you so."
"I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his."
"Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done any good, and never will."
"I don't know that you 'never will.'"
"But I do, and you must take my word for it.
Well! If you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of.
I doubt if I should abuse the permission.
It is a hundred to one if I should avail myself of it four times in a year.
It would satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it."