The String of Pearls (1850), p. 5

although I say it, in the city of London that ever thinks of polishing anybody off as I do."
"I tell you what it is, master barber: if you come that laugh again, I will get up and go. I don't like it, and there is an end of it."
"Very good," said Sweeney Todd, as he mixed up a lather. "Who are you? where did you come from? and where are you going?"
"That's cool, at all events. Damn it! what do you mean by putting the brush in my mouth? Now, don't laugh, and since you are so fond of asking questions, just answer me one."
"Oh, yes, of course: what is it, sir?"
"Do you know a Mr. Oakley, who lives somewhere in London, and is a spectacle-maker?"
"Yes, to be sure I do—John Oakley, the spectacle-maker, in Fore-street, and he has got a daughter named Johanna, that the young bloods call the Flower of Fore-street."
"Ah, poor thing! do they ? Now, confound you! what are you laughing at now? What do you mean by it?"
"Didn't you say, 'Ah, poor thing?' Just turn your head a little a one side; that will do. You have been to sea, sir?"
"Yes, I have, and have only now lately come up the river from an Indian voyage."
"Indeed! where can my strop be? I had it this minute; I must have laid it down somewhere. What an odd thing that I can't see it! It's very extraordinary; what can have become of it? Oh, I recollect, I took it into the parlour. Sit still, sir, I shall not be gone a moment; sit still, sir, if you please. By the by, you can amuse yourself with the Courier, sir, for a moment."
Sweeney Todd walked into the back parlour and closed the door.
There was a strange sound suddenly, compounded of a rushing noise and then a heavy blow, immediately after which Sweeney Todd emerged from his parlour, and folding his arms, he looked upon the vacant chair where his customer had been seated, but the customer was gone, leaving not the slightest trace of his presence behind except his hat, and that Sweeney Todd immediately seized and thrust into a cupboard that was at one corner of the shop.
"What's that?" he said, "what's that? I thought I heard a noise."
"If you please, sir, I have forgot the money, and have run all the way back from St. Paul's churchyard."
In two strides Todd reached him, and clutching him by the arm he dragged him into the farther corner of the shop, and then he stood opposite to him, glaring him full in the face with such * demoniac expression that the boy was frightfully terrified.
"Speak!" cried Todd, "speak! and speak the truth, or your last hour has come, How long were you peeping through the door before you came in?"
"Peeping, sir?"
"Yes, peeping; don't repeat my words, but answer me at once you will find it better for you in the end."
"I wasn't peeping, sir, at all.
Sweeney Todd drew a long breath as he then said, in a strange, shrieking sort of manner, which he intended, no doubt, should be jocose,—
"Well, well, very well; if you did peep, what then? it's no matter; I only wanted to know, that's all ; it was quite a joke, wasn't it—quite funny, though rather odd, eh? Why don't you laugh, you dog? Come, now, there is no harm done. Tell me what you thought about it at once, and we will be merry over it—very merry."
"I don't know what you mean, sir," said the boy, who was quite as much alarmed at Mr. Todd's mirth as he was at his anger. "I don't know what you mean, sir; I only just come back because I hadn't any money to pay for the biscuits at Peterson's."