I tried to persuade my wife to come and dust
the communion table and the pulpit-cushions for to-morrow, but she
politely declined; she needn't have thrown the bellows at my head
though, for all that." "Dust the pulpit-cushions!" thought Todd. "The wretch is coming up here! I shall have to cut his throat, and leave him at the bottom of the
pulpit for the parson to tread upon the first thing he does to-morrow,
upon coming up here to preach." As Todd spoke, he took a clasped knife out of his pocket, and opened it
with his teeth. "Oh, yes, my old friend, I shall, I see, be under the
painful necessity of cutting your throat, that I shall, and I shall not
hesitate about it at all." "Yes," added the beadle, "I mean to say that to throw the bellows at the
man is like adding insult to injury, for it is blowing him up in a kind
of way that's anything but agreeable. Lor! how cold and rum the church
does feel. Rum? why did I say rum and put myself in mind of it? Oh,
don't I like it, rather! If I only now had a glass of real fine old
Jamaica rum at this moment, I'd be as happy as a bishop." "Oh, I'll rum you!" growled Todd. "Eh? Eh?" The beadle turned round three times, as though he were going to begin a
game at blind-man's-bluff, and then he said--

"I thought I heard something. Oh dear, how shivery I do get to be sure,
when I'm alone in the church. I'll just get through the dusting job as
quick as I can, and no mistake. Amen! Amen! I'm a miserable
sinner--Amen!" CHAPTER CLIV. DETAILS THE PERILOUS SITUATION OF THE BEADLE. Todd had heard all this with anger and impatience rankling at his heart. He began to have the most serious thoughts of sacrificing the
beadle--indeed, if any good could have been got to himself by so doing,
he would not have scrupled to do so with the greatest speed. As it was,
however, he could not concoct any plan of proceedings quickly which
would benefit him, and so he was compelled to remain an auditor of the
beadle's private thoughts, and a spectator of what he was about, when he
chose to peep over the edge of the pulpit. "Well, it's astonishing," continued the beadle, "what a fever that
fellow Todd has kept me in for I don't know how long, one way or
another: me and Fleet Street have been regularly bothered by him. First
of all, I was in all sorts of doubts and uncertainties about the matter
before they took him and tried him, and was a-going to hang him, and
then I did think that he was as--good--as done--for--"

As he uttered these last words, the beadle was banging one of the
cushions of the communion-table, so that he was compelled for want of
breath to utter them at intervals. "Oh, confound you!" muttered Todd, "if I only had hold of you, I would
throttle you, and then think of what to do afterwards." Todd's great difficulty arose from the fact that he thought if he tried
to descend from the pulpit, the beadle might see him and get the start
of him in leaving the church, in which event the alarm that he would
raise in Fleet Street would be such, that any attempt to escape would be
attended by the greatest hazard. "There is nothing for it but to wait," said Todd to himself gloomily. "I
can do nothing else; but woe to him when I do catch him!" "This dusting job on a Saturday," said the beadle, "does seem to me to
be one of the most disagreeable of all that has to be done with the
church. I don't mind one's duty on a Sunday, but this is horrid. On a
Sunday there's lots of people, and the old place has a sort of cheerful
look about it, but now I don't like it, and I've a good mind to get one
of the charity-boys of the blessed parish to keep me company." "I will kill him, too, if you do," muttered Todd. The beadle paused upon this thought concerning the charity-boy; but as
he had finished the communion-table, he did not think that for the mere
dusting the pulpit and its cushions, it was worth while to make any
fuss. "It will soon be over," he said, "very soon. I'll just pop up and settle
the pulpit, and then get home again as quick as I possibly can. I do
wonder, now, if that old Todd will be caught soon? The old wretch!" The beadle began the ascent of the pulpit. "It's my opinion," he said, "that Todd--as he had other folks made up
into pies--ought to be made into one himself, and then given to mad dogs
for a supper--Ha! ha! That's a very good thought of mine, and when I go
to the 'Pig's-eye, Tooth, and Tinder-box,' to-night, I will out with it,
and they will knock their pots and glasses against the table
beautifully, and cry out--'Well done, bravo!--bravo!' I rather think I'm
a great man at the 'Pig's-eye, Tooth and Tinder-box.'" By this time the beadle had got quite to the top of the pulpit stairs,
and had his hand on the door. Todd was crouched down at the bottom of
the pulpit, waiting for him like some famished tiger ready to pounce
upon his prey. He fully intended to murder the unfortunate beadle. "Well, here goes," said that most unhappily-situated functionary, as he
stepped into the pulpit. Todd immediately grasped his legs. "If you say one word, you are a dead man!" The shock was too much for the nerves of the poor beadle of St.
Dunstan's, and on the instant he fainted, and fell huddled up at the
bottom of the little place. Todd immediately stood upon the prostrate form of the parochial
authority. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, "I have him now, and I shall be able to leave St.
Dunstan's yet." He trampled as hard upon the beadle as he could, and then he took the
clasp knife from his pocket, and said--

"It will be better to kill him. Rise, idiot, rise, and tell me if you
can, why I should not cut your throat?" The beadle neither moved nor spoke. "Is he dead?" said Todd. "Has the fright killed him? It is strange; but
I have heard of such things. Why it surely must be so. The sudden shock
has been the death of him, and it would be a waste of time for me to
touch him. He is dead--he must be dead!" Todd, full of this feeling, retreated two or three steps down the little
winding staircase of the pulpit, and then reaching in his hand, he
caught hold of the poor beadle by the hair of his head, and dragged him
sufficiently out of the pulpit to be enabled to look him in the face. The eyes were closed, the inspiration seemed to be stopped, and there
was, in truth, every appearance of death about the unfortunate
functionary of the old church. "Yes, dead," said Todd; "but it will be better for me. He will be found
here, and as no violence will show upon him, the doctors will learnedly
pronounce it a case of apoplexy, and there will arise no suspicion of my
having been here at all. It is much better, oh, much, than as if I had
killed him." With this feeling, Todd pushed what he considered to be the dead body of
the beadle back into the pulpit again, and then himself rapidly
descended the little spiral flight of stairs. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of ten, and Todd carefully
counted the strokes. "Ten," he said.