Todd glared at the two young girls like some ogre intent upon their
destruction, and as Johanna looked at him, a painter who loved contrast,
might have indeed found a study, from the wonderful difference between
those two human countenances. They neither spoke for some few moments,
and it was reserved for Todd to break the silence. "What do you want here?" he cried, in a hoarse rough voice. "Be off with
you. What do you mean by knocking at the window of an honest tradesman? I don't want to have anything to say to such as you." "He--he did it!" gasped Johanna. "Did what?" said Todd, advancing in a menacing attitude, while his face
assumed a most diabolical expression of concealed hatred. "Did what?" "Stop him! Stop him!" cried a voice from the other side of the street. "Stop Pison, he's given me the slip, and I'm blessed if he won't pitch
into that ere barber. Stop him. Pison! Pison! Come here, boy. Come here! Oh, lor, he's nabbed him. I knew'd he would, as sure as a horse's hind
leg ain't a gammon o' bacon. My eyes, won't there be a row--he's nabbed
the barber, like ninepence." Before the ostler at the Bullfinch, for it was from his lips this speech
came, could get one half of it uttered, the dog--who is known to the
readers by the name of Hector, as well as his new name of Pison--dashed
over the road, apparently infuriated at the sight of Todd, and rushing
upon him, seized him with his teeth. Todd gave a howl of rage and pain,
and fell to the ground. The whole street was in an uproar in a moment,
but the ostler rushing over the way, seized the dog by the throat, and
made him release Todd, who crawled upon all fours into his own shop. In
another moment he rushed out with a razor in his hand. [Illustration: Hector's Attack On Sweeney Todd.] "Where's the dog?" he cried. "Where's the fiend in the shape of a dog?" "Hold hard!" said the ostler, who held Hector between his knees. "Hold
hard. I have got him, old chap." "Get out of the way. I'll have his life." "No you won't." "Humph!" cried a butcher's boy who was passing. "Why that's the same dog
as said the barber had done for his master, and collected never such a
lot of halfpence in his hat to pay the expenses of burying of him." "You villain!" cried Todd. "Go to blazes!" said the boy. "Who killed the dog's master? Ah, ah! Who
did it? Ah, ah!" The people began to laugh. "I insist upon killing that dog!" cried Todd. "Do you?" said the ostler; "now, this here dog is a partickler friend of
mine, so you see I can't have it done. What do you say to that now, old
stick-in-the-mud? If you walk into him, you must walk through me first. Only just put down that razor, and I'll give you such a wolloping, big
as you are, that you'll recollect for some time." "Down with the razor! Down with the razor!" cried the mob, who was now
every moment increasing. Johanna stood like one transfixed for a few moments in the middle of all
this tumult, and then she said with a shudder--

"What ought I to do?" "Come away at once, I implore you," said Arabella Wilmot. "Come away, I
implore you, Johanna, for my sake as well as for your own. You have
already done all that can be done. Oh, Johanna, are you distracted?" "No--no. I will come--I will come." They hastily left the spot and hurried away in the direction of Ludgate
Hill, but the confusion at the shop door of the barber did not terminate
for some time. The people took the part of the dog and his new master,
and it was in vain that Sweeney Todd exhibited his rent garments to show
where he had been attacked by the animal. Shouts of laughter and various
satirical allusions to his beauty were the only response. Suddenly,
without a word, Todd then gave up the contest and retired into his shop,
upon which the ostler conveyed Pison over the way and shut him up in one
of the stables of the Bullfinch. Todd, it is true, retired to his shop
with an appearance of equanimity, but it was like most appearances in
this world--rather deceitful. The moment the door was closed between him
and observation he ground his teeth together and positively howled with
rage. "The time will come--the time will come," he said, "when I shall have
the joy of seeing Fleet Street in a blaze, and of hearing the shrieks of
those who are frying in the flames. Oh, that I could with one torch
ignite London, and sweep it and all its inhabitants from the face of the
earth. Oh, that all those who are now without my shop had but one
throat. Ha! ha! how I would cut it." He caught up a razor as he spoke, and threw himself into a ferocious
attitude at the moment that the door opened, and a gentleman neatly
dressed looked in, saying--

"Do you dress artificial hair?" CHAPTER LII. TODD'S ANNOUNCEMENT. "Yes," said Todd, as he commenced stropping the razor upon his hand as
though nothing at all was the matter. "I do anything in an honest and
religious sort of way for a living in these bad times." "Oh, very well. A gentleman is ill in bed and wants his peruke properly
dressed, as he has an important visit to make. Can you come to his
house?" "Yes, of course. But can't the peruke be brought here, sir?" "Yes. But he wants a shave as well, and although he can go in a sedan
chair to pay his visit, he is too ill to come to your shop." Todd looked a little suspicious, but only a little, and then he said--

"It's an awkward thing that I have no boy at present, but I must get
one--I must get one, and in the meantime, when I am called out I have no
resource but to shut up my shop." At this moment a stout man came in, saying--

"Shaved--oh, you are busy. I can wait, Mr. Todd--I can wait," and down
he sat. Todd looked at the new-comer with a strange sort of scowl, as he said--

"My friend, have not I seen you here before, or somewhere else?" "Very likely," said the man. "Humph, I am busy and cannot shave you just now, as I have to go out
with this gentleman." "Very well, I can wait here and amuse myself until you come back." Todd fairly staggered for a moment, and then he said--

"Wait here--in my shop--and amuse yourself until I come back? No, sir, I
don't suffer any one. But it don't matter. Ha! ha! Come in, I am ready
to attend you. But stop, are you in a very great hurry for two minutes,
sir?" "Oh, dear no, not for two minutes." "Then it will only just take me that time to polish off this gentleman;
and if, you will give the address I am to come to, I will be with you
almost as soon, sir, as you can get home, I assure you." "Oh, dear no," cried the stranger, who had come in to be shaved,
suddenly starting up, "I really could not think of such a thing. I will
call again." "It's only in Norfolk Street," said the applicant for the dressing of
the artificial hair, "and two minutes can't make any difference to my
friend, at all." "Do you think," said the other, "that I would really interrupt business
in this way? No, may I perish if I would do anything so unhandsome--not
I. I will look in again, Mr. Todd, you may depend, when you are not
going out.