The String of Pearls (1850), p. 159

"What?"
"Ale does it. Here you is. Come on."
Colonel Jeffery was rather surprised at the droll customer he had picked up in the street, but provided he carried Tobias in safety, which by-the-bye he (the colonel) would not have scrupled to do himself, had he not been encumbered by his horse, it was all one to him, and that he saw Ben was effectually doing. Tobias had shown some slight symptoms of vitality before being lifted from the step of the door close to which he had fallen, but by the time they all reached the chemist's shop, he was in a complete state of insensibility. Of course the usual crowd that collects on such occasions followed them, and during the walk the colonel had time to think, and the result of those thoughts was, that it would
be a most desirable thing to keep the knowledge to himself that Tobias was Tobias. He had, in order to awe the mob from any interference with him, announced who he was, but had not announced Tobias. At least if he had uttered his name, he felt certain that it was in an interjectional sort of way, and not calculated to awaken any suspicion.
"I will keep it to myself," he thought, "that Tobias is in my possession, otherwise if such a fact should travel round to Sweeney Todd, there's no saying to what extent it might put that scoundrel upon his guard."
By the time the colonel had arrived at this conclusion the whole party had reached the chemist's, and Big Ben walked in with Tobias, and placed him at once upon the top of a plate-glass counter, which had upon it a large collection of trumpery scent bottles and wonderful specifics for everything, through which Tobias went with a crash.
"There he is!" said Ben—"ale does it."
"Fire! murder! my glass case !" cried the chemist. "Oh, you monster!"
"Ale does it. What do you mean, eh?"
Big Ben backed a pace or two and went head and shoulders through a glass case of similar varieties that was against the wall.
"Gracious bless the beasteses," said Ben, "is your house made of glass? What do you mean by it, eh ? A fellow can't turn round here without going through something. You ought to be persecuted according to law, that you ought."
Now this learned chemist had in the glass case against which Big Ben had tumbled a skeleton, which, from the stunning and terrible look it had in his shop, brought him many customers, and it was against this remnant of humanity that Big Ben's head met, after going through the glass as a preparatory step. By
some means or another Ben caught his head under the skeleton's ribs, and the consequence was that out he hooked him from the glass case, and the first intimation Ben had of anything unusual, consisted of seeing a pair of bony legs dangling down on each side of him. So unexpected a phenomenon gave Ben
what he called a "blessed turn," and out he bounced from the shop, carrying the skeleton for all the world like what is called pick-a-back, for the wires that supplied the place of cartilages held it erect, and so awful a sight surely was
never seen in the streets of London as Big Ben with a skeleton upon his back. People fled before—some turned in at shop doors ; and an old lady with a large umbrella and a pair of gigantic pattens went clean through a silversmith's window. But we must leave Ben and the skeleton to get on as well as they can
en route to the Tower, while we turn our attention to Tobias.
"Are you a surgeon?" cried Colonel Jeffery.
"A—a surgeon? No, I'm only a druggist; but is that any reason why a second Goliah should come into my shop and destroy everything?"
Colonel Jeffery did not wait for anything more, but snatching Tobias from the remnants of the plate glass, he ran to the door with him, and handing him to the first person he saw there, he cried—
"When I am mounted give me the boy."
"Yes, sir."
He sprang upon his horse; Tobias was handed to him like a bale of goods, and