"Step into the parlour, and I will write you an order for your half, and you can get it in half an hour."
"No Todd. You will make the attempt to murder me if I step into the parlour. I will not even come further into your shop, than here upon the threshold of it, with the door in my hand. Why do you keep a razor concealed in your sleeve?"
"Oh—I—It's a little habit of mine; but allow me to assure you how very incorrect your suspicions are, Mrs. Lovett; and if you will not come in, I will write the order, and bring it to you; or what do you say to my going with you to the bankers, where you can yourself ask what is the amount of the sum standing in my name there; and when you have ascertained it, you can have half of it to a sixpence."
"Come, then. I confess, Todd, I am sufficiently suspicious of you, that I would rather not lose sight of you."
"Dear me, how dreadful it is for friends to be in such a state of feeling towards each other, to be sure. But the time will come, Mrs. Lovett, when you will see my conduct in a different light, and you will smile at the suspicion which you say you now entertain, but which sometimes I cannot help thinking are not the genuine sentiments of your heart."
"Come—come, at once."
"I must wait for the boy; I cannot leave the shop until the boy is here to mind it in my absence.—Oh, here he is."
At this moment, Johanna, who had not troubled herself to go to the market at all, came back.
"Well, what is the exact time," said Todd, "by St. Dunstan's?"
"A quarter-past eleven, sir."