The String of Pearls (1850), p. 124

"'Ah! well, I see you have been diligent, but I should have liked to have seen her, to have asked her about a missing deed; but no matter.'
"'Now about the two hundred pounds,' said I.
"'Why,' said he, ' I think one will do when you come to consider what you have received, and the short space of time and all: you had a year's board in advance.'
"'I know I had; but because I have done more than you expected, and in a shorter time, instead of giving me more, you have the conscience to offer me less'
"'No no, not the#8212;the#8212;what did you call it?#8212;we'll have nothing said about that#8212;but here is a hundred pounds, and you are well paid.'
"''Well,' said I, taking the money, 'I must have five hundred pounds at any rate, and unless you give it me, I will tell other parties where a certain deed is to be found.'
"'What deed?'
"'The one you were alluding to. Give me four hundred more, and you shall have the deeds.'
"After much conversation and trouble he gave it to me, and 1 gave him the deed, with which he was well pleased, but looked hard at the money, and seemed to grieve at it very much.
"Since that time I have heard that he was challenged by his sister s lover, and they went out to fight a duel, and he fell#8212;and died. The lover went to the continent, where he has since lived.
"'Ah,' said Sweeney Todd, ' you have had decidedly the best of this affair: nobody gained anything but you.'
"'Nobody at all that I know of, save distant relations, and I did very well; but then, you know, I can't live upon nothing: it costs me something to keep my house and cellar, but I stick to business, and so I shall as long as business sticks to me.' "

CHAPTER XXIV.

COLONEL JEFFERY MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO COME AT SWEENEY TODD'S SECRET.

If we were to say that Colonel Jeffery was satisfied with the state of affairs as regarded the disappearance of his friend Thornhill, or that he made up his mind now contentedly to wait until chance, or the mere progress of time, blew something of a more defined nature in his way, we should be doing that gentleman a very great injustice indeed. On the contrary, he was one of those chivalrous persons who when they do commence anything, take the most ample means to bring it to a conclusion, and are not satisfied that they have made one great effort, which, having failed, is sufficient to satisfy them. Far from this, he was a man who, when he commenced any enterprise, looked forward to but one circumstance that could possibly end it, and that was its full and complete accomplishment in every respect ; so that in this affair of Mr. Thornhill, he certainly did not intend by any means to abandon it. But he was not- precipitate. His habits of military discipline, and the long life he had led in camps, where anything in the shape of hurry and confusion is much reprobated, made him pause before he decided upon any particular course of action ; and this pause was not
one contingent upon a belief, or even a surmise in the danger of the course that suggested itself, for such a consideration had no effect whatever upon him; and if some other mode had suddenly suggested itself, which, while it placed his life in the most imminent peril, would have seemed more likely to accomplish his object, it would have been at once most gladly welcomed. And now, therefore,