The String of Pearls (1850), p. 663

meeting. I am much pleased, gentlemen, to see you both, and hope the brandy-and-water will do us all a world of good. I will give you a toast gentlemen."
"Ah, a toast!—a toast!"
"But mind, gentlemen, you must take a good draught, if you drink my toast—Will you?"
"Will we? Ay, to be sure, if you will."
"I promise, gentlemen; so here's the toast—It's to the very cunning fox who laid a trap for another, and caught his own tail in it!"
"What a droll toast!" said the two thieves. They paused a moment, but as
they saw their new friend drink at least-one half of his brandy-and-water in honour of the toast, they did the same thing, and looked at each other quite contented and pleased as possible that the drugged spirit, at the very first pull, had been so freely partaken of—for they had found, by experience, the victims they would have made perceived a disagreeable taste, and would not drink twice.
"Hilloa!" said Todd.
"What's the matter, old gentleman?"
"Do you know, this is very good brandy-and-water?"
"Glad you like it."
"Like it?—I couldn't be off liking it. It's capital! Lets finish these glasses, and have others at once."
As he spoke he finished his glass, and the two thieves were so delighted that he hed taken it all, that they at once finished their's likewise; and then they looked at him, and then at each other, until one said to the other, as he made a wry face—
"I say, Bill, I—I don't much like my glass. How did yours taste, eh, old fellow?"
"Very queer."
"How strange, "said Todd; "mine was beautiful! I hope, gentlemen, you have not made a mistake and put anything out of the way in your own glasses instead of mine?"
"Oh, dear. Oh—oh! I am going, Bill."
"And so am I. Oh, murder! My head is going round and round like a humming-top as big as St. Paul's."
"And so is mine."
"Then, gentlemen," said Todd, rising, "I shall have the pleasure of bidding pleasure of informing you that I am Sweeney Todd."
The two thieves, quite overcome by the powerful and death-dealing narcotic they had placed in the liquor, fell to the floor in a state of perfect insensibility, and Todd very calmly walked out of the public-house.
"This will not do," he said, when he reached the west-end of Holywell Street. "I must not run such risks as this. I must now be off. But where to? That is the question. Out of London, of course. The river, I think—ay, the river. That will be the best. I will house myself until night, and then I will hire a boat and go to Gravesend. From there I shall not find much difficulty in getting on board some foreign vessel, and with what I have in my pockets I will bid adieu to England for a little while, until I can sell my watches and jewels, and then I will come back and have my revenge yet upon those whom I only live now to destroy."
Full of these thoughts, Todd went down one of the narrow streets leading to the Thames, and as he saw a bill in a window of lodgings to let, he thought he should be safer there than in a house of public entertainment. He resolved upon taking a lodging for a week at any cost, and then leaving it in the evening after he should have had some rest at it, which he might do for the reminder of the day, provided the people would take him in, which he had very little doubt of them doing, as he did not intend to object to their terms, and he did intend to pay in advance.