The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XLVII BIG BEN’S REVENGE TITLE AS PRINTED: Johanna’s New Situation. “Johanna, attend to me,” said Mrs. Oakley, upon the morning after these events. “Well, mother?” “Your father is an idiot.” “Mother, mother! I dissent from the opinion, and if it were true, it comes with the worst possible grace from you. But I am sick at heart. I pray you to spare me reproaches or angry words, mother.” “Haity taity,® one must not speak next, I suppose. Some people fancy that other people know nothing, but there is such a thing as overhearing what some people say to other people.” Johanna had not the most remote notion of what her mother meant, but Mrs. Oakley’s tongue was like many pieces of machinery, that when once set in motion are not without considerable trouble brought to a standstill again, so on she went. “Of course. I now know quite well why the godly man who would have made you a chosen vessel was refused. It was all owing to that scamp, Mark Ingestrie.” “Mother!” “Marry come up! you need not look at me in such a way. We don’t all of us see with the same eyes. A scamp he is, and a scamp he will be.” “Mother, he whom you so name is with his God. Mention him no more. The wild ocean rolls over his body—his soul is in heaven. Speak not irreverently of one whose sole crime was that he loved me. Oh, mother, mother, you—” Johanna could say no more, she burst into tears. “Well,” said Mrs. Oakley, “if he is dead, pray what hinders you from listening to the chosen vessel, I should like to know?” “Do not. Oh do not, mother, say any more to me—I cannot, dare not trust myself to speak to you upon such a subject.” “What is this?” said Mr. Oakley, stepping into the room. “Johanna in tears! What has happened?” “Father—dear father!” “And Mr. O.,” cried Mrs. Oakley, “what business is it of yours, I should like to know? Be so good, sir, as to attend to your spectacles, and such-like rubbish, and not to interfere with my daughter.” “Dear me!—ain’t she my daughter likewise?” “Oh yes, Mr. O.! Go on with your base, vile, wretched, contemptible, unmanly insinuations. Do go on, pray—I like it. Oh, you odious wretch! You spectacle-making monster!” “Do not,” cried Johanna, who saw the heightened colour of her father’s cheek. “Oh, do not let me be the unhappy cause of any quarrelling. Father! Father!” “Hush, my dear, don’t you say another word. Cousin Ben is coming to take a little bit of lunch with us to-day.” “T know it,” cried Mrs. Oakley, clapping her hands together with a vengeance that made Oakley jump again. “I know it. Oh, you wretch. You couldn’t have put on such airs if your bully had not been coming; I thought the last time he came here was enough for him. Aye, and for you too, Mr. O.” “Tt was nearly too much,” said the spectacle-maker, shaking his head. “Tow row, row, row, row!” cried Big Ben, popping his head into the parlour, “what do you all bring it in now? Wilful murder with the chill off or what? Ah, Mother Oakley, what’s the price of vinegar now, wholesale—pluck does it. Here you is. Ha, ha! Ain’t we a united family. Couldn’t stay away from you, Mother Oakley, no more nor I could from that ’ere laughing hyena we has in the Tower.” “Eugh!—wretch!” “Sit down, Ben,” said Mr. Oakley. “I am glad to see you, and I am quite sure Johanna is.” “Oh, yes, yes.” “That’s it,” said Ben. “It’s on Johanna’s account I came. Now, little one, just tell me—” Johanna had just time to place her finger upon her lips, unobserved by any one, and shake her head at Ben. “Ah—hem! How are you, eh?” he said, turning the conversation. “Come, Mother O., stir your old stumps and be alive, will you? I have come to lunch with your lord and master, so bustle—bustle.” Mrs. Oakley rose, and placing her hands upon her hips, she looked at Ben, as she said— “You great, horrid, man-mountain of a wretch. I only wonder you ain’t afraid, after the proper punishment you had on the occasion of your last visit, to show your horrid face here again?” “You deludes to the physicking, I suppose, mum. Lor’ bless you, it did us no end of good; but, howsomdever, we provide agin wice® in animals when we knows on it aforehand, do you see. Oh, there you is.” A boy howled out from the shop—“Did a gentleman order two gallons of half-and-half here, please?” “All’s right,” said Ben. “Now, Mother O., the only thing I’ll trouble you for, is a knife and fork. As for the rest of the combustibles, CORniclooo S CO)