The String of Pearls (1850), p. 280

to go to the city with two chronometers, to take to Brown, Smuggins, Bugsby, and Podd, who employ him, and he was never afterwards heard of, leaving me with six children, and one at the breast. Now, Mr. Brown is a kind sort of man, and spoke to Podd about doing something, but Bugsby and Smuggins, they will have it that my husband ran away with the watches, and that we are only watching the best time to go to him; but my aunt, Mrs. Longfinch, in Bedfordshire, will do something for us if we go there; so I am trying to get up a pound or two to take me and the little ones."
Todd made a chuckling noise, like a hen in a farm-yard, and looked the picture of compassionate commiseration.
"Dear—dear, what a shocking thing."
"It is indeed, sir."
"And have you no idea of what has become of him, madam?"
"Not in the least, sir—not in the least. But I said to myself—I dare say Mr. Todd will be so good as to assist us in our necessities."
"Certainly, madam—certainly. Do you know what is the most nourishing thing you can give to your children?"
"Alas! sir, the poor things, since their poor father went, have had little
choice of one thing or another. It was he who supported them. But what is it, sir?"
"Mrs. Lovett's pies."
"Ah, sir, they had one a-piece, poor things, the very day after poor Solomon Slick disappeared. A compassionate neighbour brought them, and all the while they ate them, they thought of their father that was gone."
"Very natural, that," said Todd. "Now, Mrs. Slick, I am but a poor man,
but I will give you my advice, and something more substantial. The advice is, that if anybody is moved to compassion, and bestows upon you a few pence for your children, you go and lay it out in pies at Mrs. Lovett's; and as for the more substantial something, take that, and read it at your leisure."
Todd, as he spoke, took from a drawer a religious tract, entitled "The
Spiritual Quartern Loaf for the Hungry Sinner," and handed it to Mrs. Slick.
The poor woman received it with a look of blank disappointmnt, and said, with a slight shudder—
"And is this all you can do, Mr. Todd?"
"All!" cried Todd. "All? Good gracious, what more do you want? Recollect, my good woman, that there is another world where the poor will have their reward, provided that in this they are not too annoying to the rich and the comfortable. Go away. Dear—dear, and this is gratitude. I must go and pray for the hardness of heart and the Egyptian darkness of the common and the lower orders in general, and you in particular, Mrs. Slick."
The woman was terrified at the extraordinary faces that Todd made during the delivery of this harangue, and hastily left the shop, having dropped the "Spiritual Quartern Loaf tor Hungry Sinners" in the doorway.
"Ha! ha!" said Todd, when she was gone. "They thought of their father,
did they, while they ate Lovett's pies. Ha! ha!"
At this moment a man made his appearance in the shop, and looked with a sly twinkle at Sweeney Todd. The latter started, for in that man he imagined no other than an under attendant at the establishment of Mr. Fogg, of Peckham.
That this man came with some message from Fogg, he did not for a moment doubt, but what could it possibly be, since he (Todd) fully believed that Tobias Ragg was no more.
"Do you know me?" said the man.
As a general proposition, Todd did not like to say yes to anything, so he
looked dubious, add remarked that he thought it might rain soon, but if he (the man) wanted a clean shave, he (Todd) would soon do for him.
"But, really, Mr. Todd, don't you know me?"
"I know nobody," said Todd.
The man chuckled with a hideous grimace, that seemed habitual to him, for