The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

The officers, without the slightest questions or remarks, followed Sir Richard, and he began rapidly, with them at his heels, to ascend the stone staircase into the church again. “Hilloa!” cried the beadle—“I say, stop. O lord! don’t let me be lost—Oh, don’t! I shall think something horrible is coming up after me, and going to lay hold of my heels: don’t let me be lost! oh dear!” “You can’t be lost,” said one of the officers; “you know if anything is going to lay hold of your heels. Take it easy; it’s only a ghost at the most, you know.” By the time the beadle got fairly into the church, he was in that state of perspiration and fright, that he was obliged to sit down upon a tomb to recover himself; and the magistrate took that opportunity of whispering to the churchwarden, “I want to speak to you alone; come out with me—order the church to be locked up, as if we meditated no further search in the vaults.” “Yes, oh, yes! I knew there was some secret.” “There is a horrible one!—such a one as all London will ring with in twenty-four hours more—such a secret as will never be forgotten in connection with old St. Dunstan’s church, while it is in existence.” There was a solemnity about the manner in which the magistrate spoke, which quite alarmed the churchwarden, and he turned rather pale as they stood upon the church threshold. “Do you know one Sweeney Todd?” asked the magistrate. “Oh, yes—a barber.” “Good. Incline your ear to me while we walk down to Downing Street. I am going to call upon the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and before we get there, I shall be able to tell you why and what sort of assistance I want of you.” The churchwarden did incline his ear most eagerly, but before they had got half way down the Strand, he was compelled to go into a public-house to get some brandy, such an overpowering effect had the horrible communication of the magistrate upon him. What that communication was we shall very soon discover; but it is necessary that we follow Mr. Todd a little in his proceedings after he left Johanna in charge of his shop. Todd walked briskly on, till he came nearly to Pickett Street, in the Strand, and then he went into a chemist’s shop that was there, in which only a lad was serving. “You recollect,” said Todd, “serving me with some rat poison?” “Oh, yes, yes—Mr. Todd, I believe.” “The same. I want some more; for the fact is, that owing to the ointments I have in my shop for the hair, the vermin are attracted, and I have now as many as ever. It was only last night I awakened, and saw one actually lapping up hair-oil, and another drinking some rose-water that they had upset, and broken a bottle of; so I will thank you to give me some liquid poison, if you please, as they seem so fond of drink.” “Exactly, sir, exactly,” said the lad, as he took down a bottle, and made up a potion; “exactly, sir. If you put a few drops only of this in half a pint of liquid, it will do.” “A couple of drops? This must be powerful.” “Tt is—a dozen drops, or about half a teaspoonful, would kill a man to a certainty, so you will be careful of it, Mr. Todd. Of course, we don’t sell such things to strangers, you know, but you being a neighbour alters the case.” “True enough. Thank you. Good-day. I think we shall have rain shortly, do you know.” Todd walked away with the poison in his pocket, and when he had got a few yards from the chemist’s door, he gave such a hideous chuckle that an old gentleman, who was close before him, ran like a lamp-lighter® in his fright, and put himself quite out of breath! “This will do,” muttered Todd; “I must smooth the path to my retirement from business. I know well that if I were to hint at such a thing in a certain quarter, it would be considered a certain proof that I had made enough to be worth dividing, and that is a process I don’t intend exactly to go through. No, no, Mrs. Lovett, no, no.” Todd marched slowly towards his own house, but when he got to the corner of Bell Yard, and heard St. Dunstan’s strike twelve, he paused a moment, and then muttered, “I'll call and see her—yes, I’Il call, and see her. The evening will answer better my present purpose.” He then walked up Bell Yard, until he came to the fascinating Mrs. Lovett’s pie-shop. He paused a moment at the window, and leered in at two lawyer’s clerks who were eating some of yesterday’s pies. The warm day batch had not yet come up. “Happy youths!” he chuckled, and walked into the shop. Mrs. Lovett received him graciously as an acquaintance, and invited him into the parlour, while the two limbs of the law continued eating and praising the pies. “Delicious, ain’t they?” said one. “Oh, I believe you,” replied the other; “and such jolly lots of gravy, too, ain’t there? I wonder how she does make ’em. Lor’ bless you, I almost live upon ’em. You know, I used to take all my meals with my fat old uncle, Marsh, but since he disappeared one day, I live on Lovett’s pies, instead of the old buffer.” ® Q9ODOOOOOO CORniclooo S CO)