The String of Pearls (1850), p. 662

that nothing they did or looked escaped him. They little supposed that so keen an observer watched them as Sweeney Todd was.
The brandy-and-water that had been ordered soon made its appearance; and Todd, while perpetrating a very well-acted fit of caughing, saw one of the men just slightly wink at the other, and take a little way from his waistcoat pocket a small bottle.
"Oh!" thought Todd, "my brandy-and-water will be prepared, I see; and if I do not look sharp, these fellows will rob me of all that I have run so much risk, and took so much trouble to get out of the old house."
After a moments thought, he rose and said—
"I will only go and pay for what I have had at the bar, and you must permit me likewise to pay for this."
"Oh, no—no!"
"Oh, yes, but I will—I will! I dare say that I have the most money, after all, for I have been very careful in my time, and saved a trifle, so you must permit me."
The two thieves were so delighted at getting rid of him for a few moments, that although they declared it was too bad, they let him go. The moment he was gone, one said to the other, with a grin—
"Bill, put a good dose into the old chap's glass. He has got a rare gold watch in his pocket, and there's a ring on his finger, that if it isn't a diamond, its as near like one as ever I heard of. Give him a good dose."
"Well, but you know that even a few drops will settle him?"
"Never mind that. It's all right enough; pour it in."
They put enough of some deadly drug into the glass of brandy-and water that
stood next to where Todd had been sitting to kill a horse; and then he returned and sat down with a groan, as he said—
"It's quite a funny thing! There s a man at the bar inquiring for somebody; and he's got a red waistcoat on."
"A red waistcoat !" cried both the the thieves, jumping up. "Did you say a red waistcoat ?"
"Why, yes; and I think he is what they call a Bow Street thingamy—Lord bless my old brain! what do they call them—"
"A runner?"
"Ah, to be sure, a Bow Street runner, to be sure."
Both the thieves bundled out of the parlour in a moment, and Todd was not idle while they were gone. The first thing he did was to decant his own brandy-and-water—which had been drugged—into an empty glass. Then he filled his glass with the contents of one of the thieves' glasses. After that, he half filled that glass with the drugged spirit, and filled it up from the other thief's glass, and that again he filled up with the drugged spirit.
By this means, each of them had half from the glass they had—as they thought—so very cleverly drugged for him, to drink from; and as they had not scrupled to put in an over dose, it may be fairly presumed that there was in each of their glasses quite enough to make them very uncomfortable.
They both returned.
"There's nobody there now," said one. "Are you sure you saw him, sir? We can't see any one."
"Didn't I tell you he was going away when I saw him? It was only the latch of the door catching his top-coat that made me see his red waistcoat; and it was a wonder then that I saw it, for I am not very noticable in those things. Oh, dear, how bad my cough is."
"Take some of your brandy-and-water, sir," said one of the thieves, as he winked at the other. "It will do you good, sir."
"Not a doubt of it," said the other.
"Do you think so? Well—well, perhaps it may. Here's my friendship to both of you, gentlemen; and I hope we shall none of us repent of this happy