But you
promised me freedom, Mrs. Lovett." "I did, and freedom you shall have shortly. All you have to do now is to
attend to business for a little while. When I ring at twelve, send up
the batch." "I will--I will. But yet--"

"What is it now?" "If you only could fancy, Mrs. Lovett, what it was to pass one's time in
this place, you would have some feeling for me. Will you send or bring
me some real butcher's meat?" Bang went the wicket-door, and the cook found himself once again shut
out from the world in those dismal vaults of Mrs. Lovett's house. "Twelve o'clock," muttered Mrs. Lovett, as she proceeded to her parlour. "I shall surely be home by twelve. Todd will find out that I am too
persevering for him. His fears will force him to pay me, although his
justice never would. I will threaten him into payment. The odious
villain! to attempt yet to deprive me of all that I have toiled for,
with the exception of what of late I have had the prudence to keep in
the house!" The next thing that Mrs. Lovett had to do was to get some one to
effectually mind the shop in her absence, and for that purpose she
pitched upon a Mrs. Stag, a tall, gaunt-looking female, who acted as a
kind of supernumerary laundress in Lincoln's Inn. With this person Mrs.
Lovett felt that she need have no delicacy as regards locking-up and so
forth; and as Mrs. Stag laboured under a defect of hearing, she would
not be likely to pay any attention to what might take place below; but
still Mrs. Lovett was determined to leave nothing to chance, and she
left Mrs. Stag a note which was to go down on the movable platform to
the cook in case she, Mrs. Lovett, was not at home at the twelve o'clock
batch. This note contained the following words, which, as Mrs. Stag's
parents and guardians had omitted to include reading in her education,
were perfectly safe from her scrutiny--

"Send up the four o'clock batch, and you will be free within twenty-four
hours from then." This she concluded would keep him quiet; and within twenty-four hours
Mrs. Lovett felt that her affairs must be settled in some way or
another; so that it was a very safe promise, even if she had not still
retained in her own hands the means of breaking it if there should be
occasion so to do. Truly, Mrs. Lovett was, in the full acceptation of the term, a woman of
business. Mrs. Stag was sure to look in the first thing in the morning upon Mrs.
Lovett; so that as soon as that useful and submissive personage made her
appearance in Bell Yard, she was duly installed in authority in the
shop--the parlour being properly fastened up against Mrs. Stag and all
intruders. "You will be so good as to sit here until I come back, Mrs. Stag?" said
Mrs. Lovett; "and sell as many pies as you can. I am going to the
christening of a friend's child, who is anxious that I should be its
godmother." What a delightful godmother Mrs. Lovett would have made! "Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stag. "I think I shall be back at twelve o' clock; but if I am not, you can
let this note go down with the empty tray on the trap-door after you
have slid off it the twelve o' clock batch of pies." "Yes, ma'am." "You will answer no questions to any one. All you have to say is, that I
am out in the neighbourhood, and may come home at any minute, as indeed
I may. I shall, of course, pay you, Mrs. Stag, for your whole day. Pray
help yourself to a pie or two, as you feel inclined. Good morning." "Good mornin', ma'am, good mornin'. She's a very pleasant woman," said
Mrs. Stag, after Mrs. Lovett had left; "she's a remarkably pleasant
woman. What a delicious pie, to be sure!" Mrs. Stag was deep in the mysteries of a yesterday's veal. "It's very odd," added the laundress, as she wiped the gravy from the
sides of her mouth; "it's very odd that Mrs. Lovett is so very
particular in shutting up her parlour always, when she might know what a
likely thing it is that anybody may want to look at the drawers and
cupboards. It's a most remarkable thing to think what she can have there
that she will lock up in such a way." Upon this, just with a faint forlorn sort of hope that the door might be
left open, Mrs. Stag tried it, but it was fast; and, with a sigh of
disappointment, she returned to her seat again. In another moment a yesterday's pork yielded up its fascinations to the
appetite of Mrs. Stag. This, then, was the sort of life that Mrs. Stag passed in the shop. Lamentations and gravy--gravy and lamentations; and while she was thus
occupied, the cook was pacing the cellars in rather a discontented mood,
with his hands behind his back, reflecting upon things past, present,
and to come, and upon his own dismal situation in particular. "I cannot stand this," he said, "I really cannot stand this. I have had
promises from Mrs. Lovett of freedom, and I have had similar promises
from he who came to the grating in the door, but none of the promises
have been fulfilled. I cannot stand this any longer, it is impossible. I
am driven mad as it is already. I must do something. I can no longer
exist in this way." The cook looked about him, as many people are in the habit of doing when
they say they must do something, without having a very clear notion of
what it is to be; but as he at length fixed his eye upon that piece of
machinery, far up to the roof, by which the batches of pies went up to
the shop, and by which flour and butter and other matters, always
excepting meat, found their way down to him, an idea took possession of
him. What that idea was will show itself in another place. CHAPTER C.
       TODD TAKES HIS LAST WALK UP FLEET STREET AND TO BELL YARD. The twelve o'clock batch of pies went up, and down came the little
missive of Mrs. Lovett respecting the four o'clock lot to the cook; but
no Mrs. Lovett made her appearance, to relieve Mrs. Stag from her duties
in the shop. "Ah," said that elongated lady, "it's all very well of Mrs. L. to say
she would pay me for the day. I suppose she means to make a day of it,
and that's the reason. Now, young man, what's for you?" "A pork with a nob of veal in it to give it a relish," was the reply of
the young scion of the law, to whom Stag had addressed herself. "Go along with you, I don't want none o' your impertinence." "Now, ma'am, look alive. Two veals if you please. One pork--five
porks--four veals. Do you make half a veal?" "No we don't." "A hot pork--three porks--two porks--eight veals. Don't be pushing in
that way--four porks--smash. There, now, I've dropped mine, and it's all
along of you." "Do be quiet," said Stag, "gentlemen do be quiet; 'patience,' says Paul,
'and I'll soon serve you all.' What are you laughing at, you little
jackanapes? You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be making faces at a
female twice you age." "And three times your size," said a voice.