While this was proceeding, Todd suddenly opened the door, and aimed a
blow at the dog with an iron bar, but the latter dexterously avoided it,
and, but that the door was suddenly closed again, he would have made
Sweeney Todd regret such an interference. "We must inquire into this," said the captain; "there seems to be mutual
ill-will between that man and the dog." They both tried to enter the barber's shop, but it was fast on the
inside; and, after repeated knockings, Todd called from within,
saying,--

"I won't open the door while that dog is there. He is mad, or has a
spite against me--I don't know nor care which--it's a fact, that's all I
am aware of." "I will undertake," said the captain, "that the dog shall do you no
harm; but open the door, for in we must come, and will." "I will take your promise," said Sweeney Todd; "but mind you keep it, or
I shall protect myself, and take the creature's life; so if you value
it, you had better hold it fast." The captain pacified Hector as well as he could, and likewise tied one
end of a silk handkerchief round his neck, and held the other firmly in
his grasp, after which Todd, who seemed to have some means from within
of seeing what was going on, opened the door, and admitted his visitors. "Well, gentlemen, shaved, or cut, or dressed, I am at your service;
which shall I begin with?" [Illustration: The captain, the colonel, and Sweeney.] The dog never took his eyes off Todd, but kept up a low growl from the
first moment of his entrance. "It's rather a remarkable circumstance," said the captain, "but this is
a very sagacious dog, you see, and he belongs to a friend of ours, who
has most unaccountably disappeared." "Has he really?" said Todd. "Tobias! Tobias!" "Yes, sir." "Run to Mr. Phillips's, in Cateaton-street, and get me six-pennyworth of
figs, and don't say that I don't give you the money this time when you
go a message. I think I did before, but you swallowed it; and when you
come back, just please to remember the insight into business I gave you
yesterday." "Yes," said the boy, with a shudder, for he had a great horror of
Sweeney Todd, as well he might, after the severe discipline he had
received at his hands, and away he went. "Well, gentlemen," said Todd, "what is it you require of me?" "We want to know if any one having the appearance of an officer in the
navy came to your house?" "Yes--a rather good-looking man, weather-beaten, with a bright blue eye,
and rather fair hair." "Yes, yes! the same." "Oh! to be sure, he came here, and I shaved him and polished him off." "What do you mean by polishing him off?" "Brushing him up a bit, and making him tidy; he said he had got
somewhere to go in the city, and asked me the address of a Mr. Oakley, a
spectacle-maker. I gave it him, and then he went away; but as I was
standing at my door about five minutes afterwards, it seemed to me, as
well as I could see the distance, that he got into some row near the
market." "Did this dog come with him?" "A dog came with him, but whether it was that dog or not I don't know." "And that's all you know of him?" "You never spoke a truer word in your life," said Sweeney Todd, as he
diligently stropped a razor upon his great horny hand. This seemed something like a complete fix; and the captain looked at
Colonel Jeffery, and the colonel at the captain, for some moments, in
complete silence. At length the latter said,--

"It's a very extraordinary thing that the dog should come here if he
missed his master somewhere else. I never heard of such a thing." "Nor I either," said Ford. "It is extraordinary; so extraordinary that
if I had not seen it, I would not have believed. I dare say you will
find him in the next watch-house." The dog had watched the countenance of all parties during this brief
dialogue, and twice or thrice he had interrupted it by a strange howling
cry. "I'll tell you what it is," said the barber; "if that beast stays here,
I'll be the death of him. I hate dogs--detest them; and I tell you, as I
told you before, if you value him at all, keep him away from me." "You say you directed the person you describe to us where to find a
spectacle maker named Oakley. We happen to know that he was going in
search of such a person, and as he had property of value about him, we
will go there and ascertain if he reached his destination." "It is in Fore-street--a little shop with two windows; you cannot miss
it." The dog when he saw they were about to leave, grew furious; and it was
with the greatest difficulty they succeeded, by main force, in getting
him out of the shop, and dragging him some short distance with them, but
then he contrived to get free of the handkerchief that held him, and
darting back, he sat down at Sweeney Todd's door, howling most
piteously. They had no resource but to leave him, intending fully to call as they
came back from Mr. Oakley's; and, as they looked behind them, they saw
that Hector was collecting a crowd round the barber's door, and it was a
singular thing to see a number of persons surrounding the dog, while he
to all appearance, appeared to be making efforts to explain something to
the assemblage. They walked on until they reached the spectacle-maker's,
there they paused; for they all of a sudden recollected that the mission
that Mr. Thornhill had to execute there was of a very delicate nature,
and one by no means to be lightly executed, or even so much as
mentioned, probably, in the hearing of Mr. Oakley himself. "We must not be so hasty," said the colonel. "But what am I to do? I sail to-night; at least I have to go round to
Liverpool with my vessel." "Do not then call at Mr. Oakley's at all at present; but leave me to
ascertain the fact quietly and secretly." "My anxiety for Thornhill will scarcely permit me to do so; but I
suppose I must, and if you write me a letter to the Royal Oak Hotel, at
Liverpool, it will be sure to reach me, that is to say, unless you find
Mr. Thornhill himself, in which case I need not by any means give you so
much trouble." "You may depend upon me. My friendship for Mr. Thornhill, and gratitude,
as you know, for the great service he has rendered to us all, will
induce me to do my utmost to discover him; and, but that I know he set
his heart upon performing the message he had to deliver accurately and
well, I should recommend that we at once go into this house of Mr.
Oakley's, only that the fear of compromising the young lady--who is in
the case, and who will have quite enough to bear, poor thing, of her own
grief--restrains me." After some more conversation of a similar nature, they decided that this
should be the plan adopted.