The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 398: what you’re looking at

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

“Humph!” “Why do you say, Humph, Ben?” “Just answer me one question, Mrs. O. Did you ever hear of a young girl as was neglected by her mother—her mother who, of all, ought to be the person to attend to her—turning out well?” “Do not terrify me, Ben.” “Well, all I have got to say is, that Johanna can’t be in two places at once, and as she isn’t at home, how, I would ask any reasonable Christian, can she attend to the old man?” “Not at home, Ben?” “Not—at—home!” “Oh Heaven! why did I not stay in that dreadful man’s house, and let him murder me! Why did I not tell him at once that I knew of his crime, and implore him to make me his next victim! Oh, Ben, if you have any compassion in your disposition you will tell me all, and then I shall know what to hope, and what to dread.” “Well,” said Ben, “here goes then.” “What goes?” “T mean I’m a-going to tell you all, as you seem as if you’d like to know it.” “Do! Oh, do!” “Then of course Johanna being but a very young piece of goods, and not knowing much o’ the ways o’ this here world, and the habits and manners o’ the wild beasteses as is in it, when she found as the old house wasn’t good enough for her mother, she naturally enough thought it wasn’t good enough for her, you know.” “Oh, this is the most dreadful stroke of all!” “T should say it were,” said Ben, quite solemnly. “Take it easy though, and you’ll get through it in the course of time. Well then, when Johanna found as everything at home was sixes and sevens, she borrowed a pair of what do call ’ems of some boy, and a jacket, and off she went.” “She what?” “She put on a pair of thingamies—well, breeches then, if you must have it—and away she went, and the last I saw of her was in Fleet Street with ’em on.” “Gracious Heaven!” “Very likely, but that don’t alter the facts of the case, you know, Mrs. O. On she had ’em, and all I can say is that you might have knocked me down flat to see her, that you might. I didn’t think I should ever have got home to the beasteses in the Tower again, it gave me such a turn.” “Lost! Lost!” “Eh? What do you say? What have you lost now?” “My child! My Johanna!” “Oh! Ah, to be sure. But then you know, Mrs. O., you ought to have stayed at home, and gived her ever so much good advice, you know; and when you saw she was bent upon putting on the boy’s things, you as a mother ought to have said, ‘My dear, take your legs out of that if yer pleases, and if yer don’t, I’ll pretty soon make you,’ and then stayed and gived the affair up as a bad job that wouldn’t pay, and took to morals.” “Yes—yes. ’Tis I, and I only, who am to blame. I have been the destruction of my child. Farewell, Ben. You will perhaps in the course of time not think quite so badly of me as you now do. Farewell!” “Hold!” cried Ben as he clutched the arm of Mrs. Oakley only the more tightly in his own. “What are you at now?” “Death is now my only recourse. My child is lost to me, and I have driven her by my neglect to such a dreadful course. I cannot live now. Let me go, Ben. You will never hear of me again.” “Tf I let you go may I be—Well, no matter—no matter. Come on. It’s all one, you know, a hundred years hence.” “But at present it is madness and despair. Let me go. I say. The river is not far off, and beneath its waters I shall at least find peace for my breaking heart. Let my death be considered as some sort of expiation of my sins.” “Stop a bit.” “No—no—no.” “But I say, yes. Things ain’t quite so bad as you think ’em, only it was right 0’ me, you know, just to let you know what they might have been.” “What do you tell me?” “Why that there ain’t a better girl than Johanna in all the world, and that if all the mothers that ever was or ever will be, had neglected her and set her all their bad examples in the universal world, she would still be the little angel that she is now, and no mistake.” “Then she is not from home? It is all a fable?” “Not quite, Mrs. O. Just you trot on now comfortably by the side of me, and I will tell you the whole particulars, and then you will find that there ain’t no occasion to go plumping into the river on Johanna’s account.” Poor Mrs. Oakley, with delight beaming upon every feature of her face, now listened to Ben while he explained the whole matter to CORniclooo S CO)