"Why, you mangy skin-flint," cried the woman. "What do you--"

She was cut short in her vituperative eloquence by John, who handed her
down stairs with such dispatch that a pint bottle of gin rolled out of
her pocket and was smashed, filling the house with an odour that was
quite unmistakeable. "What do you propose to do?" said the captain. "Why, as we have dined, if you have no objection we will sit here and
keep this poor benighted one company for awhile. He is better with no
one than such as she whom I have dislodged; but before night he shall
have a more tender and less professional nurse. You know more of the
world, after all, than I do, captain." CHAPTER XXII. TOBIAS HAS A MIND DISEASED. With a bottle of claret upon the table between them, Colonel Jeffery and
his old friend sat over the fire in the bed-room devoted to the use of
poor Tobias Ragg. Alas! poor boy, kindness and wealth that now
surrounded him came late in the day. Before he first crossed the
threshold of Sweeney Todd's odious abode, what human heart could have
more acutely felt genuine kindness than Tobias's, but his destiny had
been an evil one. Guilt has its victims, and Tobias was in all senses
one of the victims of Sweeney Todd. "I am sufficiently, perhaps superstitious, you will call it," said
Colonel Jeffery in a low tone of voice, "to think that my meeting with
this boy was not altogether accidental." "Indeed?" "No. Many things have happened to me during life--although I admit that
they may be all accounted for as natural coincidences, curious only at
the best but still suggestive of something very different, and make me
at times a convert to the belief in an interfering special Providence,
and this is one of them." "It is a dangerous doctrine, my friend." "Think you so?" "Yes. It is much better and much safer both for the judgment and
imagination to account naturally for all those things which admit of a
natural explanation, than to fall back upon a special Providence, and
fancy that it is continually interfering with the great and immutable
laws that govern the world. I do not--mark me--deny such a thing, but I
would not be hasty in asserting it. No man's experience can have been
without numerous instances such as you mention." "Certainly not." "Then I should say to you, as St. Paul said to the Athenians--'In all
things I find you superstitious.' What's that?" A faint moan had come upon both their ears, and after listening for a
few moments another made itself heard, and they fancied, by the
direction of the sound, that Tobias's lips must have uttered it. Placing
his finger against his mouth to indicate silence, the colonel stepped up
to the bedside, and hiding behind the curtains, he said, in the softest
and kindest voice he could assume--

"Tobias! Tobias! fear nothing now you are with friends, Tobias; and,
above all, you are perfectly free from the power of Sweeney Todd." "I am not mad! I am not mad!" shouted Tobias with a shrill vehemence
that made both the colonel and his friend start. "Nay, who says you are mad, Tobias? We know you are not mad, my lad. Don't alarm yourself about that, we know you are not mad." "Mercy! mercy! I will say nothing--nothing. How fiend-like he looks. Oh,
Mr. Todd, spare me, and I will go far, far away, and die somewhere else,
but do not kill me now, I am yet such--such a boy only, and my poor
father is dead--dead--dead!" "Ring the bell," said Jeffery to his friend, "and tell John to go for
Mr. Chisolm, the surgeon. Come--come, Tobias, you still fancy you are
under the power of Todd, but it is not so--you are quite safe here." "Hush! hush! mother--oh, where are you, mother--did you leave me here,
mother? Say you took, in a moment of thoughtlessness, the silver
candlestick! Is Todd to be a devil, because you were thoughtless once? Hide me from him--hide me--hide! hide! I am not mad. Hark! I hear
him--one--two--three--four--five--six steps, and all Todd's. Each one
leaves blood in its track. Look at him now! His face changes--'tis a
fox's--a serpent's--hideous--hideous--God--God! I am mad--mad--mad!" The boy dashed his head from side to side, and would have flung himself
from the bed had not Colonel Jeffery advanced and held him. "Poor fellow," he said, "this is very shocking. Tobias! Tobias!" "Hush! I hear--poor thing, did they say you was mad too?--Hide me
in the straw! There--there--what a strange thing it is for all the
air to be so full of blood. Do we breathe blood, and only fancy it
air? Hush! not a word--he comes with a serpent's face--oh, tell me
why does God let such beings ever riot upon the beautiful
earth--one--two--three--four--five--six--Hiss--hiss! Off--off! I
am not mad--not mad. Ha! ha! ha!" An appalling shriek concluded this paroxysm, and for a few moments
Tobias was still. The medical man at this time entered the room. "Oh," he said, "we have roused him up again, have we." Medical men are
rather fond of the plural identifying style of talking. "Yes," said Colonel Jeffery, "but he had better have slept the sleep of
death than have awakened to be what he is, poor fellow." "A little--eh?" The doctor tapped his forehead. "Not a little." "Far away over the sea!" said Tobias, "oh, yes--in any ship, only do
not kill me, Mr. Todd--let me go and I will say nothing, I will work
and send my poor mother hard-earned gold, and your name shall never
pass our lips. Oh, no--no--no, do not say that I am mad. Do you see
these tears? I have--I have not cried so since my poor father called
me to him and held me in a last embrace of his wasted arms, saying,
'Tobias, my darling, I am going--going far from you. God's blessing be
upon you, poor child.' I thought my heart would break then, but it did
not, I saw him put from the face of the living into the grave, and I
did not quite break my heart then, but it is broken--broken now! Mad! mad! oh, no, not mad--no--no, but the last--but the last. I tell you,
sir, that I am--am--am _not_ mad. Why do you look at me, I am not
mad--one--two--three--four--five--six. God--God--God! I am mad--mad. Ha! ha! ha! There they come, all the serpents, and Todd is their king. How the shadows fly about--they shrink--I cannot shrink. Help! God! God! God!" "This is horrible," said Colonel Jeffery. "It is appalling, from the lips of one so young," said the captain. The medical man rubbed his hands together as he said--

"Why, a-hem! it certainly is strangely indicative of a considerable
amount of mental derangement, but we shall be able, I dare say, to
subdue that. I think, if he could be persuaded to swallow a little
draught I have here, it would be beneficial, and allay this irritation,
which is partly nervous." "There cannot be much difficulty," said the colonel, "in making him
swallow anything, I should think." "Let us try." They held Tobias up while the doctor poured the contents of a small
phial into his mouth. Nature preferred performing the office of
deglutition to choking, and it was taken.