"I assure you, sir, it is considered to be very good."
"Considered?" said Todd. "Then, my friend, there's your money, and as the brandy is considered to be so good, you can drink it; but having some respect, from old companionship, for my inside, I decline it. Good evening."
With these words, Todd laid a shilling upon the bar, and strode away.
"Well," said the publican, "how singular! that's the eighth person who has refused that one quartern of brandy and paid for it. Here, wife, put this back into the bottle again, and shake it up well."
Todd pursued his route down Haverstock Hill, until he came to the then straggling district of Camden Town, and there he did find a house at which he got just a tolerable glass of brandy, and feeling very much invigorated by the drop, he walked on more rapidly still; and a thought took possession of him, which, although it was perhaps not unattended with danger, might turn out to be a very felicitous one.
During his career in the shop in Fleet Street, he had collected a number of watches from the pockets of the murdered persons, but he had always been afraid to attempt the disposal of the best of them.
The fact was, that at that time everybody had not a watch as at present. It was an expensive article, and Mr. So-and-so's watch was as well known as Mr. So-and-so himself; so that it would have been one of the most hazardous things possible for Todd to have brought suspicion upon himself by going about disposing of the watches of his victims. It was the same, too, with some other costly articles, such as rings, lockets, and so on; and as he had realised as much money as he could previous to his arrangements for leaving England, Todd had left some of this description of property to perish in the fire, which he hoped to be the means of igniting in old Fleet Street upon his departure.
Now, as he crept along by Tottenham-Court-Road, he mused upon the state of things.
"If," he muttered, "I could only get into my late house in Fleet Street, I know where to lay my hand upon portable property, which was not worth my consideration while I had thousands of pounds in gold, but which now would be a fortune to me in my reduced circumstances. If I could but lay my hand upon it!"
The more Todd thought over this proposition, the more pleased he was with it; and by the time he had indulged himself with two more glasses of brandy, it began to assume, to his mind, a much more tangible shape.