"You don't mean it, sir?" "Indeed, but I do." "Oh, how could I mistake you for anything but a very nice man indeed,
and a perfect gentleman. It's one of the most singular things in all the
world, but I never do hardly take anything, yet what I do take is--is--"

"Gin." Mrs. Stag nodded and smiled faintly. "Well, my dear madam, I don't see why we should not have a drop while I
wait for Mrs. Lovett. Don't you trouble yourself, my dear madam. Now
really do not. I know that you will like to have to say to that good,
delightful, Mrs. Lovett, that you have not left the shop since she was
absent; I will get it. They will lend me a bottle, and I have capacious
pockets." "But for you, sir, to--"

Todd was gone. "Well, really, he is a very nice sort of conversable man," said Mrs.
Stag to herself, "when you come to know him, and he ain't near so ugly
as he looks after all. I do hope Mrs. Lovett won't trouble herself to
come home for the next half hour, since Mr. Todd has been so good as to
call and to make himself so very agreeable about the--the gin." Todd went into Fleet Street for the gin, and he returned by the dark
archway leading into Bell Yard. It was darker then than it is now, and
in the deepness of an ancient doorway, he paused to drop into the
gin--not a deadly poison--but such a potion as he knew would soon wrap
up the senses of Mrs. Lovett's substitute in oblivion. This narcotic he took from a small phial he had in his breast-pocket. He did not say anything, but he gave one laugh, and then he walked on to
the pie-shop, where he was eagerly and warmly welcomed by Mrs. Stag, who
very assiduously placed a chair for him, saying, as she did so, that
"Mrs. Lovett would quite stare if she were to pop in just then, and see
them enjoying themselves, in a manner of speaking, in so delightful a
manner." "I should stare!" said Todd. "You would, sir?" "Yes; I rather am inclined to think that that christening business will
detain her. By this time she has got into the thick of it, my dear
madam, you may depend, although I am quite certain she will be strictly
temporate, and take nothing but water." "Do you think so, sir?" "I am sure of it. Can you find a glass, madam? I have not the happiness
of knowing your name." "Stay, if you please, sir. I have one glass here without a foot. It's an
odd thing, but Mrs. Lovett shuts up the place when she goes out, as if
we were all thieves and murderers." "Does she really? Well--well, we will manage with one glass, my dear
Mrs. Stag. It is the first time we have had a drop together, and I have
only to hope that it will not be the last. I ought not, perhaps, to say
it before your face, but you are the most entertaining company that I
have met with for a long time.--Drink, madam." "After you, sir." "No--no, I insist." Mrs. Stag drank off the full glass that Todd presented her with, and
then affecting to pour one out for himself, but dexterously keeping the
bottle between him and the lady, he only carried the empty glass to his
lips. Now, Mrs. Stag was a decided connoisseur in gin, and she suddenly
assumed a thoughtful air, and looked up to the ceiling as she slightly
moved her lips. "Rather an unusual taste after it's down, don't you think, sir?" she
said. "Has it? Well, I don't know. Perhaps you have been tasting a pie, madam,
and that may have influenced the flavour. Try it again. You never can
tell the taste of a glass of gin, in my opinion, until you have taken
two at least. Try this, Mrs. Stag." "Really I--I. Thank you, sir." Off went a second glass, and then Todd glared at her with the eyes of a
fiend, as he said, placing the bottle upon the counter, "That ought to
be a dose, I think." "Sir?" stammered Mrs. Stag. "I--I--God bless me--I--sir--gin--I--that is
lots of pies--gin--gravy. Mrs. Lovett--in the crown of a bonnet--I--my
dear, my dear--Bless us all. Lock it all up--no--no--no. Gin--I--good
again--Pies--gravy." Todd caught her by the throat or she would have fallen; and then, as she
became quite insensible, he thrust her under the counter. [Illustration: Todd Performs An Operation On Mrs. Stag.] CHAPTER CI. TODD MAKES HIMSELF QUITE AT HOME IN BELL-YARD. "Idiot!" said Todd, as he spurned the insensible form of Mrs. Stag with
his foot. "Idiot! I would kill you, but that it would not do me any
good. The narcotic you have taken in the gin may or may not carry you
off for all I care. It don't matter to me one straw." He glared around him for a few moments with the fierceness of an ogre,
and then walking to the shop-door, he deliberately locked and bolted it,
so that no one could get in, even if they were expiring for a pie. "Humph," he said. "This is a time of day when it is not likely the shop
will be troubled with many customers. It is between the batches, I know,
so I am safe for an hour; and during that time if I do not make some
discoveries here, it will surely be my own fault." Again he glared around him with the ogre-like aspect, and he ran his
eyes carefully over the whole shop, from corner to corner--from floor to
roof, and from roof to floor. At length he said--

"Where now, if I were hiding anything, would I select a place in this
shop?" After putting this question to himself Todd again ran his eyes over the
shop, and at length he came to the conclusion that it was not there he
should seek for any hiding place at all, and he certainly paid the
sagacity of Mrs. Lovett one of the highest compliments he possibly could
by concluding that she would do as he would under like circumstances. "No," he said. "The shop is no hiding place for the secret store of my
late friend Mrs. Lovett. No--no. I must seek in the very centre of her
home, for that which I would find. Let me think--let me think." Todd felt himself quite at home in Bell Yard. He was in truth the
landlord of the house. It had not been safe to make the extensive
under-ground alterations in the place if Mrs. Lovett had been the tenant
of a stranger merely; so Todd had purchased the freehold, and such being
the case, and his tenant, the charming Mrs. Lovett, being as he firmly
believed, at the bottom of the Thames, who should feel at home in the
place if he, Sweeney Todd, did not? He felt that he had time, too. There was no hurry in life, and he quite
smiled to himself, as he said--

"How often I have longed for a rummage among my dear departed friend
Mrs. Lovett's goods and chattels, and now how many happily and singly
circumstances have changed about to enable me to gratify my inclination. Ha!" Todd, in the security of his bad heart, uttered one of his old
laughs--but then for the whole of that day he had been unusually happy. His good terms with himself shone out even of his eyes, horrible eyes. "Yes," he said, "yes, she is dead--dead--dead. Ha! ha! Mrs.
Lovett--clever, fascinating creature--how muddy you lie to-night. Ha!" It was not prudent, however, to waste time, although he had plenty of
it--it never is; so up rose Todd, and proceeded to the parlour.