"That is too absurd."
Todd shrugged his shoulders, as though he would have said—"Well, if you will have it so, I cannot help it;" and then he said—
"I was in the City. I heard the rumour of the instability of Brown. I flew into a shop. I wrote the order like a flash of lightning. I went to Brown's like an avalanche, and I brought away the money, as if Heaven and earth were coming together."
There was not the ghost of a smile upon Todd's face as he made use of these superlatives. Mrs. Lovett began to be staggered.
"Then you have it here?"
"No, no!"
"You have. Tell me that you have, and that this Mr. Black you mentioned is a mere delusion."
"Black may be no colour, but it is not a delusion."
"You trifle with me. Beware!"
"In a word then, my charming Mrs. Lovett, I dreaded to bring the money here. I thought my house the most unsafe place in the world for it. I and you stand upon the brink of a precipice—a slumbering volcano is beneath our feet. Pshaw! Where is your old acuteness, that you do not see at once how truly foolish it would have been to bring the money here?"