The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

“T cannot tell. I know nothing.” “Tt is evident that you do know something, but hesitate either from fear or some other motive to tell it; as you are inaccessible to fair means, we must resort to others, and you shall at once come before a magistrate, * who will force you to speak out.” “Do with me what you will,” said Tobias, “I cannot help it. I have nothing to say to you, nothing whatever. Oh, my poor mother, if it were not for you—” “What, then?” “Nothing! nothing! nothing!” It was but a threat of the colonel to take the boy before a magistrate, for he really had no grounds for so doing; and if the boy chose to keep a secret, if he had one, not all the magistrates in the world could force words from his lips that he felt not inclined to utter; and so, after one more effort, they felt that they must leave him. “Boy,” said the colonel, “you are young, and cannot well judge of the consequences of particular lines of conduct; you ought to weigh well what you are about, and hesitate long before you determine keeping dangerous secrets: we can convince you that we have the power of completely protecting you from all that Sweeney Todd could possibly attempt. Think again, for this is an opportunity of saving yourself perhaps from much future misery, that may never arise again.” “T have nothing to say,” said the boy, “I have nothing to say.” He uttered these words with such an agonized expression of countenance, that they were both convinced he had something to say, and that, too, of the first importance—a something which would be valuable to them in the way of information, extremely valuable probably, and yet which they felt the utter impossibility of wringing from him. They were compelled to leave him, and likewise with the additional mortification, that, far from making any advance in the matter, they had placed themselves and their cause in a much worse position, in so far as they had awakened all Sweeney Todd’s suspicions if he were guilty, and yet advanced not one step in the transaction. And then to make matters all the more perplexing, there was still the possibility that they might be altogether upon a wrong scent, and that the barber of Fleet Street had no more to do with the disappearance of Mr. Thornhill than they had themselves. Q9OOO0OOOO GOnMG oOo SS CO)