The String of Pearls (1850), p. 622

will play you some trick that shall go right to drive you out of your shallow wits. Go! It is the very thing I would, of all others, have wished you to do."
It was quite clear that the man who had proposed going up stairs to explore the first-floor, was much the more alarmed of the two; and now that he had made the proposal, he would gladly have seized upon any excuse for backing out of it, short of actually confessing that his tears had got the better of him. No doubt he had been greatly in hopes that his companion, who had told the ghost story, would have shrunk from such an ordeal; but as he did not do so, there was no resource but to carry it out or confess that it was but a piece of braggadocia, which he wanted the firmness to carry out. He strove now to talk himself out of his fears.
"Come on—come on! Ghosts, indeed! There are no such things, of course, as any reasonable man knows; and if there are, why, what harm can they do us? I say, what harm can they do us?"
"I don't know!"
"You don't know? No, nor nobody else! Come on, I say. Of course providence is providence, and if there are ghosts, I respect them very much—very much indeed, and would do anything in the world to oblige them!"
The valiant proposer of the experimental trip to the first floor uttered these last sentences in a loud voice, no doubt with the hope that if any of the ghostly
company of the first-floor were within hearing, they would be so good as to report the same to their friends, so that he might make his way there with quite a good understanding.
They trimmed the candle now; and having each of them fortified himself with a glass of brandy that Todd had laid in for his own consumption, they commenced their exploit by leaving the parlour and slowly ascending the staircase that led to the upper portion of the house.
Of course, Todd knew well the capabilities of that house, and long before the two men had actually left the parlour he had made up his mind what to do. The door of communication between the shop and the parlour was not fastened, so that he could on open at the moment; and when the men left that latter room he at once entered it. Todd's first movement, then, was to supply himself with a good dose of his own brandy, which he took direct from the bottle to save time.
"Ah!" he whispered, drawing a long breath after the draught, "I feel myself again, now!"
In order to carry out his plan, he knew that he had no time to spare; for he did not doubt but that the two men would make their visit as short as possible to the first-floor; so—with cautious but rapid footsteps—he slipped into the passage and at once commenced the assent of the staircase after them. The light they carried guided him very well. How little they imagined that any of its beams shone upon the diabolical face of Sweeney Todd!
"Can't you come on?" said one of the men to the other. "Damme, how you do lag behind, to be sure. Any one would think you were afraid."
"Afraid? Me afraid! that is a good joke."
"Well, come quicker, then.''
"You will both of you," thought Todd, "come down a little quicker, or I am very much mistaken indeed."
The distance was short, and the landing of the first floor was soon gained by the men. He who had seen, or dreamed that he had seen, the strange sight in the room upon a former occasion, was decidedly the most courageous of the two.
Perhaps, after all, he was the least imaginative.
"I think you said it was the front room?" said the other.
"Oh, yes, I heard not a sound in the back one. Here's the door. You hold the light while I listen a little."
"Yes—I—I'll hold it. Keep up your courage, and don't shake now. Oh, what a coward you are!"
"Well, that's a good one. You are shaking so yourself that you will have the