The report, too, would bring a
crowd round his shop, and the old story of him and the accusing dog--for
had not that dog accused him?--would be brought up again. But yet
something must be done. "Am I to be a prisoner here," said Todd, "while that infernal dog sits
in the shaving chair, howling?" Now and then, for the space of about half-a-minute, the dog would be
quiet, but then the prolonged howl that he would give plainly showed
that he had only been gathering breath to give it. Todd got desperate. "I must and will shoot him," he said. Going to a sideboard he opened a drawer, and took from it a large
double-barrelled pistol. He looked carefully at the priming, and
satisfying himself that all was right, he crept again to the parlour
door. "I must and will shoot him at any risk," he said. "This infernal dog
will be else the bane and torment of my life. I thought I had been
successful in poisoning the brute as he suddenly disappeared from my
door, but he has been preserved by some sort of miracle on purpose to
torment me." Howl went the dog again. Sweeney Todd took a capital aim with the
pistol. To be sure his nerves were not quite in such good order as they
sometimes were, but then the distance was so short that how could he
miss such an object as a Newfoundland dog? "I have him--I have him," he muttered. "Ha! ha! I have him!" He pulled the trigger of the pistol--snap went the lock, and the powder
in the pan flashed up in Todd's face, but that was all. Before he could
utter even an oath the shop door was opened, and a man's voice cried--

"Hasn't nobody seen nothing of never a great dog nowheres? Oh, there you
is, my tulip. Come to your father, you rogue you. So you guved me the
slip at last did you, you willain!" CHAPTER XLIV. TODD AND THE SILVERSMITH. [Illustration: Sweeney Todd Re-Visited By The Dog Of One Of His
Victims.] Hector whined a kind of recognition of this man, but he did not move
from the chair in Todd's shop upon which he had seated himself. "Come, old fellow," said the man, "you don't want to be shaved, do you?" Hector gave a short bark, but he wagged his tail as much as to
intimate--"Mind, I am not at all angry with you." And indeed it was
quite evident, from the manner of the dog to this man, that there was a
good understanding between them. "Come now, Pison," said the man, "don't be making a fool of yourself
here any more. You ain't on friendly terms here, my tulip." "Hilloa!" cried Todd. The man gave a start, and Hector uttered an angry growl. "Hilloa! Who are you?" "Why, I'm the ostler at the 'Bullfinch!' _oppesite_." "Is that your dog?" "Why in a manner o' speaking, for want of a better master, he's got me." The ostler, by dint of shading his eyes with his hands, and looking very
intently, at last saw Todd, and then he added--

"Oh, it's you, master, is it?" "Take away that animal directly," cried Todd. "Take him away. I hate
dogs. Curses on both you and him; how came he here?" "Ah, Pison, Pison, why did you come here, you good for nothink feller
you? You ought to have knowed better. Didn't I always say to
you--leastways, since I've had you--didn't I say to you--'Don't you go
over the way, for that ere barber is your natural enemy, Pison,' and yet
here yer is." As he spoke, the ostler embraced Hector, who was not at all backward in
returning the caress, although in the midst of it he turned his head in
the direction of the back-parlour, and gave a furious bark at Todd. "There is some mystery at the bottom of all this," muttered Todd; and
then raising his voice, he added--"How did you come by the dog?" "Why, I'll tell you, master. For a matter of two days, you know, he
stuck at your door with a hat as belonged--"

"Well, well!" "Yes, his master, folks said, was murdered." "Ha! ha!" "Eh? Oh, Lord, what was that?" "Only me; I laughed at the idea of anybody being murdered in Fleet
Street, that was all." "Oh, ah! It don't seem very likely. Well, as I was a saying, arter you
had finished off his master--"

"I?" "Oh, I begs your pardon! Only, you see, the dog would have it that you
had, and so folks say so as natural as possible; but, howsomdever, I
comed by and seed this here dog in the agonies o' conwulsions all along
o' pison. Now where I come from, the old man--that's my father as
was--had lots o' dogs, and consekewently I knowed somethink about them
ere creturs; so I takes up this one and carries him on my back over the
way to the stables, and there I cures him and makes a pet of him, and I
called him Pison, cos, you see, as he had been pisoned. Lor, sir, you
should only have seed him, when he was a getting a little better, how he
used to look at me and try to say--'Bill, don't I love you neither!' It's affection--that it is, blow me!" Todd gave an angry snarl of derision. "I tell you what it is, my man," he said; "if you will hang that dog, I
will give you a guinea." "Hang Pison? No, old 'un, I'd much rather hang you for half that ere
money. Come along, my daffydowndilly. Don't you stay here any more. Why,
I do believe it was you as pisoned him, you old bloak." The ostler seized Hector, or Pison, as he had fresh christened him,
round the neck, and fairly dragged him away out of the shop. To be sure,
if Hector had resisted, the ostler, with all the power of resistance he
possessed, it would indeed have been no easy matter to remove him; but
it was wonderful to see how nicely the grateful creature graduated his
struggles, so that they fell short of doing the smallest hurt to his
preserver, and yet showed how much he wished to remain as a terror and a
reproach to Sweeney Todd. When they were both fairly gone, Todd emerged
from his parlour again, and the horrible oaths and imprecations he
uttered will not bear transcription. With eager haste he again bundled
into the cupboard all the things that the dog had dragged out of it, and
then stamping his foot, he said--

"Am I, after defeating the vigilance of heaven only knows who, and for
so long preserving myself from almost suspicion, to live in dread of a
dog? Am I to be tormented with the thought that that fiend of an animal
is opposite to me, and ready at any moment to fly over here and chase me
out of my own shop. Confound it! I cannot and will not put up with such
a state of things. Oh, if I could but get one fair blow at him. Only one
fair blow!" As he spoke he took up a hammer that was in a corner of the shop, and
made a swinging movement with it through the air. Some one at that
moment opened the shop door, and narrowly escaped a blow upon the head,
that would have finished their mortal career. "Hilloa! Are you mad?" "Mad!" said Todd. "Yes: do you knock folks' brains out when they come to be shaved?" "Mine's a sedentary employment," said Todd, "and when I am alone, I like
exercise to open my chest. That's all. Ain't it rather late to be
shaved? I was just about to shut up."