"Not he, Mrs. Ragg. Chambers won't see him agin till night. Oh, he's a shocking young man. Well, Mrs. Ragg, as you was a saying?"
"Well, it is good. As I was a saying, Martha, I don't feel uneasy now about Tobias, poor boy; for if ever a poor lad, as was a orphan in a half-and-half kind of way, seeing that I am his natural mother, and living, and thanking God for the same, and health, leastways, as far as it goes at this present moment of speakin, I—I—Bless me, where was I?"
"At Tobias."
"Oh, yes, I was at Tobias. As I was saying, if ever a poor body was well provided for, Tobias is. The colonel—"
"The who?"
"The colonel, Martha—the colonel as has took the care of him, and who, sooner or later, will have all the truth out of him about the Toddey Sween."
"Who? Who?"
"Bless my poor head, I mean Sweeney Todd. Dear me, what am I thinking of?"
"The barber?"
"Yes, Martha; that horrid barber in Fleet-street; and between you and me, there isn't in all the mortal world a more horrid wretch living than he is."