The String of Pearls (1850), p. 206

"Ah! who comes? 'Tis he—no—God! 'tis Todd."
For a moment she pressed her hands upon her face, as though she would squeeze out the traces of passion from the muscles, and then her old set smile came back again. Todd entered the shop. For a few moments they looked at each other in silence, and then Todd said—
"Alone?"
"Quite," she replied.
He gave one of his peculiar laughs, and then glided into the parlour behind the shop. Mrs. Lovett followed him.
"News?" he said.
"None."
"Hem! The time is coming."
"The time to leave off this?"
"Yes. The time to quit business, Mrs. Lovett. All goes well—swimmingly. Ha! ha!"
She shuddered as she said—
"Do not laugh."
"Let those laugh who win," replied Todd. "How old are you, Sarah?"
"Old?"
"Yes, or to shape the question perhaps more to a woman's liking, how young are you? Have you yet many years before you in which to enjoy the fruits of our labours? Have you the iron frame which will enable you to say—'I shall revel for years in the soft enjoyments of luxury stolen from a world I hate?' Tell me."
Mrs. Lovett fell into a musing attitude, and Todd thought she was reflecting upon her age; but at length she said—
"I sometimes think I would give half of what is mine if I could forget how I became possessed of the whole."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, Todd. Has no such feeling ever crossed you?"
"Never! I am implacable. Fate made me a barber, but nature made me
something else. In the formation of man there is a something that gives weakness to his resolves, and makes him pause upon the verge of enterprise with a shrinking horror. That is what the world calls conscience. It has no hold of me. I have but one feeling towards the human race, and that is hatred. I saw that while they pretended to bow down to God, they had in reality set up another idol in their heart of hearts. Gold! gold! Tell me—how many men there are in this great city who do not worship gold far more sincerely and heartily than
they worship Heaven?"
"Few—few."
"Few? None, I say, none. No. The future is a dream—an ignis fatuus—
a vapour. The present we can grasp—ha!"
"What is our wealth, Todd?"
"Hundreds of thousands."
He shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered from the parlour into the shop.
"Who is that keeps dodging past the window each moment, and peeping in at every convenient open space in the glass that he can find?"
Mrs. Lovett looked, and then, after an effort, she said—
"Todd, I was going to speak to you of that man."
"Ah!"
"Listen; I suspect him. For some days past he has haunted the shop, and makes endeavours to become acquainted with me. I did not think it sound policy wholly to shun him, but gave him such encouragement as might supply me with opportunities of judging if he were a spy or not."
"Humph!"
"I think him dangerous."
Todd's eyes glistened like burning coals.