"Where's the dog's master?" said one.
"Ah, where indeed?" said Todd; "I should not wonder if he had come to some foul end!"
"But I say, old soap-suds," cried a boy; "the dog says you did it."
There was a general laugh, but the barber was by no means disconcerted, and he shortly replied.
"Does he? he is wrong then."
Sweeney Todd had no desire to enter into anything like a controversy with the people, so he turned again and entered his own shop, in a distant corner of which he sat down, and folding his great gaunt-looking arms over his chest, he gave himself up to thought, and if we may judge from the expression of his countenance, those thoughts were of a pleasant anticipatory character, for now and then he gave such a grim sort of smile as might well have sat upon the features of some ogre.
And now we will turn to another scene, of a widely different character.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PIE-SHOP, BELL-YARD.
Hark! twelve o'clock at mid-day is cheerily proclaimed by St. Dunstan's church, and scarcely have the sounds done echoing throughout the neighbourhood, and scarce has the clock of Lincoln's-inn done chiming in with its announcement of the same hour, when Bell-yard, Temple-bar, becomes a scene of commotion.
What a scampering of feet is there, what a laughing and talking, what a jostling to be first; and what an immense number of manoeuvres are resorted to by some of the throng to distance others!