The String of Pearls (1850), p. 643

"Lor bless us, yes, it's that old villain Todd's house, gentlemen, in course. It's come to a bad end, like its master will come to, if he hasn't. When I saw the flames and heard 'em a-roaring, I said to my missus'Conwulsions!' says I, 'if that ain't Todd's house in a blaze.'"
"You are right, Mr. Beadle," said a voice in reply.
"Yes, gentlemen, perhaps I says it as I oughtn't to say it, but I is commonly right in my way, you know, gentlemen; and so, as I says, Conwulsions! It's Todd's house a fire!"
"And you think," said another voice, "we shall get a good view of it from the old church tower?"
"Yes, gentlemen," replied the beadle, whom the reader will not fail to recognise as our old acquaintance. "Yes, gentlemen. I'll warrant as you will get a capital view from the top of the old tower, where I will take you. Lor a mussy, how it is a roorin, that fire! I know'd it was Todd's house, and I said to my missus, 'Conwulsions!' says I, 'that's old villanous Todd's house a-fire!'"
Todd ground his teeth together with rage as he listened to this; but he felt that if he would provide for his own safety, there was indeed now no time to lose, and he rapidly retreated into the body of the church.
His first thought was to hide himself in one of the pews, but the divisions between them were not so high as to prevent a person of very moderate height indeed from looking over one of them, and there was quite light enough now for any one in such a case to have seen him, if they had chosen to glance into the pew in which he might take shelter. The case was urgent, however, and he had not much time for thought, so being close to the pulpit he ran up its steps, opened the little door, and ensconced himself within it in a moment.
There, at all events, he felt that he was hidden securely from any merely casual observation.
The church door was opened almost before he could get the pulpit door shut; but he did manage to close it, and he was satisfied that he had done so without exciting the attention of those who were entering the church. Todd could, of course, from where he was, hear, with the greatest clearness and precision, every
word that they said to each other, as they walked up the aisle.
One of the persons who were coming with the beadle to view the fire from the tower of the church went on speaking to his companions.
"And so," he said, "I think, if no one be hurt, and the fire can be kept just within the limits of Todd s house, it will be no bad thing to have a place that is such a continual reminder of atrocious guilt, swept from the face of the earth."
"Yes," said the other, "the only pity is, that Sweeney Todd is not in it to go with it. Then the good thing would be complete."
"It would, gentlemen," said the beadle. "Oh, when you comes to think of what he did and what be might have done—Oh, it makes my hair stand o' end,
and my parochial blood curdle, to think of what he might have done, gentlemen."
"He could not do worse than he did."
"Not wus? not wus? Oh,—oh!"
"How is it possible? He committed a number of murders, and if you can find me anything worse he could have done, I shall indeed be very much surprised."
"Gentlemen, he might have polished me off. That's what he might have done, for he has actually had me hold of by the nose. Oh conwulsions! if I had only then thought that there was a chance of his polishing off, as he used
to call it, a parochial authority, I should have-I should have—
"What, Mr. Beadle?"
"Flewed through the window, sir, that's what I should have done, and told the world at large what had happened."
"Well certainly, that would have been something."
"Everything," said the other gentleman, in a tone of voice that showed how