"I thank you, Sir Richard; and I will forget what you have said, because
I will recollect nothing from you, or committed with you, but kindness
and consideration." Sir Richard smiled slightly for a moment, as he turned aside and spoke
to his friend the fruiterer for some minutes in a low tone. The young
girl who had before behaved with such kindness to Johanna, took her by
the hand, and led her up-stairs. "Come," she said, "you shall tell me all you have suffered opposite
since we parted last, and I will speak to you of him whom you love." "You are too good to me." While all this was going on so close to him, Todd, with many oaths and
execrations, was putting up his own shutters, which he did with a
violence that nearly knocked the front of the window in. When he had
finished, he walked into his house, and closing the door, he said, in a
low tone--

"I must make up my mind what to say to Mrs. Lovett in the morning. I am
afraid she will be hard to pacify." At this moment a man peered out from the inn gateway opposite, and said
to himself--

"Now begins my watch. I dare say now Mrs. Lovett has some particular
reason for watching this barber, though she did not tell me. However, a
guinea for one night's work is not bad pay." CHAPTER LXXXVII. MR. LUPIN MEDDLES WITH OTHER FOLKS' AFFAIRS. "Brother Oakley, is sister Oakley within?" This rather cool speech--cool considering all the circumstances--was
uttered by no other than the Reverend Mr. Lupin to Mr. Oakley, who was
working in his shop on the morning after Johanna had gone upon her
perilous enterprise to Todd's. Mr. Oakley looked up with surprise upon his features. "What?" he said. "Is sister Oakley within, brother?" "Don't call me brother, you canting hypocrite. How do you make out any
such relationship, I should like to know?" "Are we not all brothers in the Lord?" "Pho! Go along." "Nay, brother Oakley, my coming to you upon this day hath, in good
truth, a meaning." As he said these words, the countenance of the pious man had upon it a
malignant expression, and there was a twinkle about his eyes, which said
as plainly as possible, "And that meaning is mischief!" Old Oakley
looked at him for some few seconds, and then he said--

"Hark you, Mr. Lupin, you have already meddled too much in my affairs,
and I desire now that you will be so good as to leave them alone." "Humph! brother Oakley, what I have to say, concerns thee to hear, but I
would rather say it to thy wife, who is a sister in the faith, and
assuredly one of the elect, than I would say it to you, who will
assuredly go to a warm place below for your want of faith; so I say
again, is sister Oakley within?" "If you mean my wife," replied the old spectacle-maker, "I am sorry to
say that nobody knows less of her going out and coming home than I do." "Truly, she frequents the Tabernacle of the Lord, called Ebenezer, where
we all put up a hearty and moving prayer for you." "Nobody asks you. I believe you are a set of rascals." "How pleasant this is." "What is pleasant?" "To be nailed. How charming it is for the friends of Satan to call the
Saints hard names. Brother Oakley, you are lost, indeed." "If you call me brother again, you shall be lost, Mr. Lupin. I tell you
once for all, I don't know anything of my wife's going out or coming
home, and I don't want to see you in my shop any more. If it were not
for one person in this world, and that one an angel, if ever one lived
upon the earth, I should not care how soon my head was laid low." "Humph! brother Oakley! Humph!" Oakley caught up a file to throw at the head of the hypocrite, but there
was such an expression of triumph upon his face, that the heart of the
old spectacle-maker sunk within him as he thought to himself, "This man
brings ill news, or he would never look as he does." The file dropped
from his hands, and pushing his spectacles up to the top of his head, he
glared at Lupin as he said--

"Speak--speak! What have you to say?" "Humph!" "Speak man, if you be a man!" "Humph, brother Oakley; you have a daughter--Johanna?" "Yes, yes!" cried old Oakley. "My heart told me that it was of my child
this wretch came to speak. Tell me all instantly. Speak--what of my dear
Johanna? I will wrest the truth from you. Has anything happened--is she
well? Speak--speak!" Mr. Oakley sprang upon the preacher, and seizing him by the throat,
forced him back until he fell upon an old chest in the shop that was
full of tools and the lid of which giving way with Lupin's weight and
the sudden concussion with which he came upon it, precipitated him into
the box among a number of pointed implements, the effect of which may be
better imagined than described, as the newspapers say. "Murder! murder!" screamed the preacher. "Now you rascal!" cried old Oakley. "Say what you have got to say, and
at once, too." "Murder!" again gasped Lupin. "Brother Oakley, spare my life." "I will not spare it if you are not quite explicit as regards what you
have hinted of my child. Speak at once. Tell me what you have to say?" "Let me get up. Oh, be merciful, and let me get up." "No. You can stay very well where you are. Be quiet and speak freely, in
which case no harm will come to you." "Did you say, be quiet, brother Oakley? Truly you would be anything but
quiet in my situation. What induces you to keep all your tools in this
chest with the points uppermost?" "You are trying to prevaricate now," said Oakley, suddenly snatching
from the wall of his shop an antique sword, that had hung there as a
sort of ornament, not entirely inconsistent with his trade. "You are
trying to prevaricate with me now, and I must and will have your life. Prepare for the worst. You have now aroused feelings that cannot be so
easily quelled again. Your last hour has come!" The sight of the sword awakened the most lively feelings of terror in
the mind of the preacher. He gave a howl of dismay, and made the most
frantic efforts to get up out of the tool-chest; but that was no easy
matter, particularly as old Oakley flourished the antique sword in
dangerous proximity to his nose. At length, lifting up his hands in the
most supplicating manner, he cried--

"Mercy--mercy, and I will tell." "Go on, then. Quick." "Yes--yes. Oh, dear! Yes. I was sojourning in this ungodly city, and
taking my way, deep in thought, upon the wickedness of the world, the
greater portion of the inhabitants of which will assuredly go down
below, where there is howling and--"

"You rascal, I'll make you howl if you do not come to the point
quickly." A flourish of the sword, so close to the face of Mr. Lupin that he
really believed for the moment it had taken the end of his nose off,
admonished him that the patience of Mr. Oakley was nearly exhausted, and
in a whining tone, he added--

"Truly, I was in the street called Fleet-street; when as I was crossing
the way, a young lad nearly upset me into the kennel. He did not see me,
but I saw him. Truly, brother Oakley, I saw the face of that--that
individual."