The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 371: what you’re looking at

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

passing glance at Todd’s shop. Todd was at the door. How pleased and self-satisfied he looked! He was rubbing his huge hands slowly together, and a grim smile was on his horrible features. Mrs. Lovett clinched her hands until her nails made marks in the palms of them that did not come out for hours, and in a harsh growling voice, she said— “Ah, grin on, grin on, fiend—your hours from now shall be numbered. You shall hang, hang, and I shall hope to see you in your last agony. If any bribe can induce the hangman, by some common bungling to protract your pain, he has but to name his price and he shall have it.” The coach rolled on. Mrs. Lovett rose up from among the straw with a shudder. The immersion in the river had not drowned her certainly, but it had done her no good; and she could not conceal from herself, that a serious illness might very probably result from her unexpected cold bath. “Never mind,” she said. “Never mind! What care I so that I complete my revenge against Todd? If I die after that it will not much matter. I will have my revenge.” The coach stopped at the corner of Bell Yard. “That will do,” said Mrs. Lovett as she pulled the check-string. “That will do. I will alight here.” She paid the coachman double the amount of his fare, so he only muttered a few curses between his teeth, and drove off. With quite a staggering step, for Mrs. Lovett was anything but well, she walked to her own shop. The door was closed, and she looked through the upper half of it which was of glass, just in time to see the highly trustworthy personage whom she had left in charge of the concern, place a bottle to her lips, and slowly lift it up. Mrs. Lovett opened the door, just as the titillating contents of the bottle were rippling over the palate of the lady, who had had such an adventure with Todd. “Wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Lovett. Down fell the bottle, and smashed into many fragments on the floor of the shop. An unmistakable odour of gin filled the air. “So,” cried Mrs. Lovett, “this is the way you employ your time is it, while I am away?” “T—T—Todd,” stuttered the woman, “T—I—Todd is such a nice man.” “Todd, do you say?” “Yes—I—I say—T—Todd is a nice man.” “Answer me, wretch, instantly. Has he been here? Speak, or I will shake your wretched life out of you.” Mrs. Lovett suited the action to the word, and the word to the action, for she clutched her substitute by the throat, and shook her vehemently. “D—D—Don’t Mrs. L.—I—will—tell all—all. I will indeed.” “Speak then. Has Todd been here?” “In course, and quite a nice man—I—I may say—dquite a gin—I mean a nice man—a cordial old Tom. No! Cream of the—Todd!” “Wretch!” Mrs. Lovett paced the shop for a few moments in an agony of rage. Todd presuming upon her death had actually been there, no doubt upon an expedition to ransack the place. A touch to the lock of the parlour-door, told her at once that it was open, and from that moment she no longer could doubt but that the whole house had been subject to the scrutiny of Sweeney Todd. “The wretch!” she said. “He thought to find enough no doubt to reward his pains, but he has been deceived in that hope, I feel well assured. What I have here, I have too well hidden for any search of a few hours to find it. If they were to pull the house to pieces, brick by brick and timber by timber, they might find something to pay them for their labour.” The lady with the partiality for gin, now seemed to be lapsing into a state of somnolency, but Mrs. Lovett gave her rather a rough shake. “Tell me,” she said, “when did this man come, and what did he say to you?” “Gin!” “T ask you what Todd said to you?” “Oh, yes. I—really—fine times. Old Tom Todd—cream of the Todd.” It was quite clear that she was too far gone in drunkenness for anything distinct or reliable to be got from her, and the only thing Mrs. Lovett had to do, was to consider what to do with her. If she threw her out of the shop into the court, the probability was, that a crowd would collect round her, and that was just what Mrs. Lovett did not want. Indeed, for all she. Mrs. Lovett knew, the drunken woman might stagger round to Todd’s, and let him know what of all things she wished to keep secret from him, namely, that she had returned. Mrs. Lovett had not yet formed her plans, and certainly until she had done so, she did not want any premature knowledge of her rescue from drowning to reach the ears of Todd. But what to do with the drunken woman was the question. Mrs. Lovett had to think a little over that. At length, however, she made up her mind, and approaching the lady who had such a partiality for Old Tom, she said— “Did you ever taste my cordial spirit, that I have up stairs in my bedroom?” CORniclooo S CO)