well, the more the merrier; it don't matter to me a bit. Have you got him with you and is he tolerably quiet?'
'It's a mere boy, and he is not violently mad, but very decidedly so as regards what he says.
'Oh! that's it, is it? He can say what he likes here, it can make no difference in the world to us. Bring him in - Mr Fogg is in his own room.'
'I know the way: you take charge of the lad, and I will go and speak to Mr Fogg about him. But stay, give the coachman these six shillings, and discharge him.'
The doorkeeper of the lunatic asylum, for such it was, went out to obey the injunctions of Sweeney Todd, while that rascally individual himself walked along a wide passage to a door which was at the further extremity of it.
XXII. The Madhouse Cell
When the porter of the madhouse went out to the coach, his first impression was that the boy, who was said to be insane, was dead; for not even the jolting ride to Peckham had been sufficient to arouse him to a consciousness of how he was situated; and there he lay still at the bottom of the coach alike insensible to joy or sorrow.
'Is he dead?' said the man to the coachman.
'How should I know?' was the reply; 'he may be or he may not, but I want to know how long I am to wait here for my fare.'
'There is your money, be off with you. I can see now that the boy is all right, for he breathes, although it's after an odd fashion that he does so. I should rather think he has had a knock on the head, or something of that kind.'
As he spoke, he conveyed Tobias within the building, and the coachman, since he had no further interest in the matter, drove away at once, and paid no more attention to it whatever.
When Sweeney Todd reached the door at the end of the passage, he tapped at it with his knuckles, and a voice cried,-
'Who knocks - who knocks? Curses on you all, who knocks?'
Sweeney Todd did not make any verbal reply to this polite request, but opening the door he walked into the apartment, which is one that really deserves some description.
It was a large room with a vaulted roof, and in the centre was a superior oaken table, at which sat a man considerably advanced in years, as was proclaimed by his grizzled locks that graced the sides of his head, but whose herculean frame and robust constitution had otherwise successfully resisted the assaults of time.
A lamp swung from the ceiling, which had a shade over the top of it, so that it kept a tolerably bright glow upon the table below, which was covered with books and papers, as well as glasses and bottles of different kinds, which showed that the madhouse keeper was, at all events, as far as he himself was concerned, not at all indifferent to personal comfort.
The walls, however, presented the most curious aspect, for they were hung with a variety of tools and implements, which would have puzzled anyone not initiated into the matter even to guess at their nature.
These were, however, in point of fact, specimens of the different kinds of machinery which were used for the purpose of coercing the unhappy persons whose evil destiny made them members of that establishment.
Those were what is called the good old times, when all sorts of abuses flourished in perfection, and when the unhappy insane were actually punished, as if they were guilty of some great offence. Yes, and worse than that were they punished, for a criminal who might have injustice done to him by any who were in authority over him, could complain, and if he got hold of a person of higher power, his complaints might be listened to, but no one heeded what was said by the poor maniac, whose bitterest accusations of his keepers, let their conduct have been to him what it might, was only listened to and set down as a further proof of his mental disorder.
This was indeed a most awful and sad state of things, and, to the disgrace of this country, it was a social evil allowed until very late years to continue in full force.
Mr Fogg, the madhouse keeper, fixed his keen eyes, from beneath his shaggy brows, upon Sweeney Todd, as the latter entered his apartment, and then he said,-
'Mr Todd, I think, unless my memory deceives me.'
'The same,' said the barber, making a hideous face. 'I believe I am not easily forgotten.'
'True,' said Mr Fogg, as he reached for a book, the edges of which were cut into a lot of little slips, on each of which was a capital letter, in the order of the alphabet - 'true, you are not easily forgotten, Mr Todd.'
He then opened the book at the letter T, and read from it:
'Mr Sweeney Todd, Fleet-street, London, paid one year's keep and burial of Thomas Simkins, aged 13, found dead in his bed after a residence in the asylum of 14 months and 4 days. I think, Mr Todd, that was our last little transaction: what can I do now for you, sir?'
'I am rather unfortunate,' said Todd, 'with my boys. I have got another here, who has shown such decided symptoms of insanity, that it has become absolutely necessary to place him under your care.'
'Indeed! does he rave?'
'Why, yes, he does, and it's the most absurd nonsense in the world he raves about; for, to hear him, one would really think that, instead of being one of the most humane of men, I was in point of fact an absolute murderer.'
'A murderer, Mr Todd!'
'Yes, a murderer - a murderer to all intents and purposes; could anything be more absurd than such an accusation? - I, that have the milk of human kindness flowing in every vein, and whose very appearance ought to be sufficient to convince anybody at once of my kindness of disposition.'
Sweeney Todd finished his speech by making such a hideous face, that the madhouse keeper could not for the life of him tell what to say to it; and then there came one of those short, disagreeable laughs which Todd was such an adept in, and which, somehow or another, never appeared exactly to come from his mouth, but always made people look up at the walls and ceiling of the apartment in which they were, in great doubt as to whence the remarkable sound came.
'For how long,' said the madhouse keeper, 'do you think this malady will continue?'
'I will pay,' said Sweeney Todd, as he leaned over the table, and looked into the face of his questioner, 'I will pay for twelve months; but I don't think, between you and I, that the case will last anything like so long - I think he will die suddenly.'
'I shouldn't wonder if he did. Some of our patients do die very suddenly, and somehow or another, we never know exactly how it happens; but it must be some sort of fit, for they are found dead in the morning in their beds, and then we bury them privately and quietly, without troubling anybody about it at all, which is decidedly the best way, because it saves a great annoyance to friends and relations, as well as prevents any extra expenses which otherwise might be foolishly gone to.'
'You are wonderfully correct and considerate,' said Todd, 'and it's no more than what I expected from you, or what anyone might expect from a person of your great experience, knowledge, and acquirements. I must confess I am quite delighted to hear you talk in so elevated a strain.'
'Why,' said Mr Fogg,
