"You hear him?" said Todd. "Was there ever anybody so mad?"
Tobias In The Hands Of The Mad-House Keepers.
"Desperately mad," said the keeper. "Come, come, young fellow, we shall be under the necessity of putting you in a strait waistcoat if you go on in that way. We must do it, for there is no help in such cases if we don't."
Todd slunk back into the dark of the apartment, so that he was not seen, and Tobias continued, in an imploring tone—
"I do not know who you are, sir, or where I am; but let me beg of you to cause the house of Sweeney Todd, the barber, in Fleet-street, near St. Dunstan's church, to be searched, and you will find that he is a murderer. There are at least a hundred hats, quantities of walking sticks, umbrellas, watches, and rings, all belonging to unfortunate persons who, from time to time, have met with their deaths through him."
"How uncommonly mad!" said Mr. Fogg.
"No, no," said Tobias, "I am not mad. Why call me mad, when the truth or falsehood of what I say can be ascertained so easily? Search his house, and if those things be not found there, say that I am mad, and have but dreamed of them. I do not know how he kills the people. That is a great mystery to me yet; but that he does kill them, I have no doubt—I cannot have a doubt."
"Watson!" cried the mad-house keeper. "Hilloa! here, Watson."
"I am here, sir," said the man, who had been dashing water upon poor Tobias's face.