"Yes, your lordship, and if you are disengaged for a few minutes, I have something to communicate."
"Ah, some new plot. Confound those Jacobin rascals!"
"No, my lord, the affair is quite domestic and social. It has no shade of politics about it."
The look of interest which the face of the secretary had assumed was gone in a moment, but still he could not very well refuse now to hear what Sir Richard Blunt had to say, and the conference lasted a quarter of an hour. At its termination, as Sir Richard was leaving the room, the secretary said—
"Oh, yes, of course, take full discretionary powers, and the Home-office will pay all expenses. I never heard of such a thing in all my life."
"Nor I, my lord."
"It's really horrible."
"It is even so far as we know already, and yet I think there is much to learn. I shall, of course, communicate to your lordship anything that transpires."
"Certainly—certainly. Good day."
Sir Richard Blunt left the Secretary of State, and proceeded to his own residence, and while he is there, making some alteration in his dress, we may as well take a glance at Crotchet, and see what that energetic but somewhat eccentric individual is about. After parting with Sir Richard Blunt at Temple Bar, he walked up Fleet Street, upon Sweeney Todd's side of the way, until he overtook a man with a pair of spectacles on, and a stoop in his gait, as though age had crept upon him.