The String of Pearls (1850), p. 519

"Chains—Newgate—a cell—death! Found out at last! At the moment of my triumph—defeated—detected! Newgate—chains—death!"
He fell back upon the stool again, and sat for the space of about two minutes in perfect silence. Then he sprang up again with such a wild yell of rage and mental agony, that not only the cell, but the whole of that portion of the prison, echoed again with it.
The turnkey opened a small wicket in the door, which when it was opened from without, still was defended by iron bars across it, and peering into the
cell, he said—"Hilloa! What now?"
"Hilloa!" shouted Todd. "Air—air!"
"Air? Why what do you mean by gammoning a fellow in that sort o' way for, eh? Haven't you got lots o'air? Well, of all the unreasonable coves as ever I comed across, you is the worstest. Be quiet, will you?"
"No—no! Death—death! Give me the means of instant death. I am going mad—mad—mad!"
"Oh, no yer ain't. It's only yer first few hours in the stone-jug that has comed over you a little, that's all, old fellow. You'll soon pick up, and behave yourself like any other christian. All you have got to do is never to mind, and then it's nothink at all, old chap."
Clap went shut the little wicket door again.
"Help! Help!" shouted Todd. "Take these irons off me. It is only a dream after all. Back, back you grinning fiends—why do you look at me when you know that it is not real? No—no, it cannot be, you know that it cannot be real."
"Be quiet will you?" shouted the turnkey.
"Keep off, I say. All is well. Mrs. Lovett dead—quite dead. The boy to die too. The house in a blaze—all is well arranged. Why do you mock and joke at me?"
"Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "I do begin to think now that he's getting queer in the upper story. I have heard of its driving some of 'em mad to be bowled out when they didn't expect it, more special when it's a hanging affair. I wonder what he will say next? He's a regular rum un, he is."
"What have I done?" shouted Todd. "What have I done? Nothing—nothing. The dead tell no tales. All is safe—quite safe. The grave is a good secret keeper. I think Tobias is dead too—why not? Mrs. Lovett is dead. This is not Newgate. These are not chains. It is only the nightmare. Ha! ha! ha! It is only the nightmare—I can laugh now!"
"Oh, can you?" said the turnkey. "It's rather an odd sort o' laugh though, to my thinking. Howsomdever, there's no rule agin grinning, so you can go on at it as long as you like."
"Mercy!" suddenly shrieked Todd, and then down he fell upon the floor of the cell, and lay quite still. The turnkey looked curiously in at him, through the little grating.
"Humph!" he said, "I must go and report him to the Governor, and he will do whatsomdever he likes about him; but I suppose as they will send the
doctor to him, and all that ere sort o' thing, for it won't do to let him slip out o' the world and quite cheat the gallows; oh dear no."
Muttering these and similar remarks to himself, the turnkey went, as he was bound in duty to do upon any very extraordinary conduct upon the part of any prisoner in his department, to report what Todd was about to the Governor.
"Ah!" said that functionary, the surgeon, "and I will soon come to him. I fully expected we should have some trouble with that man. It really is too bad, that when people come into the prison, they will not be quiet. It would be just as well for them, and much more comfortable for me."
"Werry much, sir," said the turnkey.
"Well—well, he shall be attended to."
"Werry good, sir."