The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 170: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ah HE STRING OF PEARLS. emer ~ © Certainly.” In the course of the day the captain made his appearance, and Colonel J effery detailed to him all that had taken place, only lamenting that, after so happily get- ting possession of Tobias, he should be in so sorry a condition. The captain expressed a wish to see him, and they both went to the champer, where a woman had been hired to sit with Tobias, in order to give the first intimation of his stirring. Of course, as it was her duty, and what she was specially hired for, to keep wide awake, she was fast asleep, and snoring loud enough to awaken any one much worse than poor Tobias. But that was to be expected. ‘¢ Oh,” said the captain, “ this is a professional nurse,” « A professional devil |”? said the colonel. ‘‘ How did you know that?” “ By her dropping off so comfortably to sleep, and her utter neglect of her charge. I never base one that did not do so, and, in good truth, I am inelined to think it is the very best thitig they ean do, for if they are not asleep they are ob- noxiously awake,’ The colonel took a pin from his cravat, and rather roughly inserted its point — into the fat arm of the nurse; ‘She started up, exclaiming—- “¢ Drat the fleas, can’t a mortal sleep in peace for them ee Madam,” said the colonel, “‘ how much is owing to yot for sleeping here a few hours ?”’ | | “‘ Lord bless me, sir, is this you? The poor soul has never so much as stirred. : How my heart bleeds continually for him, to be sure. Ah, dear me, wo are all born like sparks, and keep continually flying wpwand, as the psalm says.” ‘How much do Lowe you?” do | “ Here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Bless his innoesent faes.”’ The colonel rung the bell, and a strapping footman made his appearance. «You will see this woman to the door, John,” he said, “ and pay her for being here about three hours.’ «Why, you mangey skin-flint,” cried the woman. ‘ What do you——” She was cut short in her vituperative eloquence by John, who handed her down stairs with such dispatch that @ pint bottle of gin rolled out of her pocket and was smashed, filling the house with an odour that was quite unmistakaeble, ‘¢ What do you propose to do?” said the captain. | “Why, as we have dined, if you have no objection we will sit here and keep | this poor benighted one company for awhile. He is better with no one than such as she whom I have dislodged ; but before night he shall have a more tender and less professional nurse, You know more of the world, after all, than I do, captain,” CHAP TER XI. TOBIAS HAS A MIND DISEASED, Wirth a bottle of claret upon the table between them, Colonel Jeffery and his old friend sat over the fire in the bed-room devoted to the uee of poor Tobias Ragg. Alas! poor boy, kindness and wealth that now surrounded him came late inthe day. Before he first crossed the threshold of Sweensy Todd’s edious abode, what human heart could have more acutely felt genuine kindness than Tobias’s, but his destiny had been an evil one. Guilt has its victims, and Tobias was in all senses one of the victims of Sweeney Todd. | ‘‘T am sufficiently, perhaps superstitious, you will call it,” said Colonel Jeffery ina low ue of voice, “to think that my meeting with this boy was not altogether accidental.”’ ‘“‘ Indeed ?” ‘No, Many things have happened to me during life—although I admit that they may be all accounted for as natural coincidenees, curious only at the best | comicbooks.com