The String of Pearls (1850), p. 444

take one's heart completely by storm. Ah, my dear madam, when one looks at the slumbering infant, how one feels an irresistible desire to smother it."
"Lor, sir!"
"With soft kisses, my dear madam. Only fancy me now a baby!"
Todd made so awful a contortion of visage contingent upon this supposition that poor Mrs. Stag, in the nervous condition which the whole adventure had thrown her into, nearly fainted right away. Indeed, the only thing that recovered her was hearing her visitor say—
"I am really very thirsty to-day. How do you feel, madam?"
These were delightful words.
"Oh, sir," she said, "how very odd. I am thirsty likewise."
"Well, that is remarkable." said Todd. "Now, my dear madam, I don't make a common thing of saying as much to anybody, but you, who are a lady evidently of refined taste and intellectual capabilities, I am sure, will understand me, and make allowances for my feelings when I say that I prefer to anything else—gin!"
"You don't mean it, sir?"
"Indeed, but I do."
"Oh, how could I mistake you for anything but a very nice man indeed, and a perfect gentleman. It's one of the most singular things in all the world, but I never do hardly take anything, yet what I do take is—is—"
"Gin."
Mrs. Stag nodded and smiled faintly.
"Well, my dear madam, I don't see why we should not have a drop while I wait for Mrs. Lovett. Don't you trouble yourself, my dear madam. Now really do not. I know that you will like to have to say to that good, delightful, Mrs. Lovett, that you have not left the shop since she was absent; I will get it. They will lend me a bottle, and I have capacious pockets."
"But for you, sir, to—"
Todd was gone.
"Well, really, he is a very nice sort of conversable man," said Mrs. Stag to herself, "when you come to know him, and he aint near so ugly as he looks after all. I do hope Mrs. Lovett wont trouble herself to come home for the next half hour, since Mr. Todd has been so good as to call and to make himself so very agreeable about the—the gin."
Todd went into Fleet Street for the gin, and he returned by the dark archway leading into Bell Yard. It was darker then than it is now, and in the deepness of an ancient doorway, he paused to drop into the gin—not a deadly poison—but such a potion as he knew would soon wrap up the senses of Mrs. Lovett's substitute in oblivion.
This narcotic he took from a small phial he had in his breast-pocket. He did not say anything, but he gave one laugh, and then he walked on to the pie-shop, where he was eagerly and warmly welcomed by Mrs. Stag, who very assiduously placed a chair for him, saying, as she did so, that Mrs. Lovett would quite stare if she were to pop in just then, and see them enjoying themselves, in a manner of speaking, in so delightful a manner."
"I should stare!" said Todd.
"You would, sir?"
"Yes; I rather am inclined to think that that christening business will detain her. By this time she has got into the thick of it, my dear madam, you may depend, although I am quite certain she will be strictly temporate, and take nothing but water."
"Do you think so, sir?"
"I am sure of it. Can you find a glass, madam? I have not the happiness of knowing your name."
"Stay, if you please, sir. I have one glass here without a foot. It's an odd thing, but Mrs. Lovett shuts up the place when she goes out, as if we were all thieves and murderers.''