The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 291: what you’re looking at

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

we AS RRR TH ) E STRING OF PEARLS. © —° 283 Well, my friend, I suppose you have sought me with some motive? Pray speak out, and tell me what it is.” The man laughed. | _ “Ihave had a row with Fogg,” he said, “and we parted inanger. I told | him I would split upon the den, but he is a deep one, and he only coughed. | Fogg, though, somehow don’t laugh as he used. However, as well as he could { laugh, he did, and, says he, ‘ Peter, my lad,’ says he, ‘if you do split upon the ce eee get you transported, as safe as you think yourself,’ ” ell : “Well, I—I—didn’t like that.”’ “Then you are probably,” said Todd in a bland manner—* you are pro- bably aware that you may be obnoxious to the law.” “* A few!” said the fellow. “‘ And what followed ?” Me ““* Why, Peter,’ added Fogg, ‘ you may leave me if you like, and once a month there will be a couple of guineas here for you. There's the door, 86 away, I insist ;’ and it has struck me, that if Fogg gives me a couple of shiners a month to hold my tongue, other gentlemen might do as much, and through one and another, [ might pick up a crust and something to moistenit with.” The man laughed again. Todd nedded his head, as much as to say—*' You could not have explained yourself clearer,’’ and then he said— “‘ Peter, in your way you have a certain sort of genius. I might just remark, however, that after paying Fogg handsomely for what he has done, it is rather || hard that Foge’s cast-off officials should come upon Fogg’s best customers, and threaten them out of any more.”’ * J know it’s hard,”’ said the man. ‘Then why do you do it ?”’ ‘* Because, to my thinking, it would be a deuced sight harder for me to want anything; and besides, I might get into trouble, and be in the hands of the police, when who knows but that in some soft moment some one might get hold of me, and get it allout of me. Wouldn’t that be harder still for all 2” “‘ It would.”’ ‘‘Ah! Mr. Todd, I always thought you were a man of judgment, that I did.” ** You do me infinite honour.”’ ‘* Not atall. Isay what I think, you may take your oath of that. But when I saw you come about that last boy, I said to myself‘ Mr. Todd is carrying on some nice game, but what it is I don’t know. Howsomdever he is a man with something more than would go into a small tea-spoon herve !' abouts.’” ) Mr. Peter tapped his forehead with his finger as he spoke, to intimate that he alluded to the intellectual capacity of Todd. ‘‘ You are very obliging,” said Todd.” “ Not at all. Not at all. How much will you stand, now ?” ‘“‘ I suppose, if I say the same as Mr. Fogg, you will be satisfied, Mr. Peter. Times are very bad, you know.” - Peter laughed again. “ No, no! Mr. Todd, times are not very bad, but I do think what you say is very fair, andthat if you stand the same as Fogg, I ought not to say one word against it.” ‘*How charming it is,” said Todd, casting his eyes up to the ceiling, es though communing with himself or some higher intelligence supposed to be i.\ that direction. ‘‘ How charming it is to feel that you are at any time trans. acting: business with one who is so very obliging and so very reasonable.”’ Somehow Peter winced a little before the look of Todd. The barber had come into his proposal a little too readily. It almost looked as though he saw his way too clearly out of it again. If he had declaimed loudly, and made a great fass about the matter, Mr. Peter would have been better pleased, but as | it was he felt, he scarcely knew why, wonderfully fidgetty. | } -_ ie Ut comicbooks.com