In another moment a yesterday's pork yielded up its fascinations to the appetite of Mrs. Stag.
This, then, was the sort of life that Mrs. Stag passed in the shop. Lamentations and gravy—gravy and lamentations; and while she was thus occupied, the cook was pacing the cellars in rather a discontented mood, with his hands behind his back, reflecting upon things past, present, and to come, and upon his own dismal situation in particular.
"I cannot stand this," he said, "I really cannot stand this. I have had promises from Mrs. Lovett of freedom, and I have had similar promises from he who came to the grating in the door, but none of the promises have been fulfilled. I cannot stand this any longer, it is impossible. I am driven mad as it is already. I must do something. I can no longer exist in this way."
The cook looked about him, as many people are in the habit of doing when they say they must do something, without having a very clear notion of what it is to be; but as he at length fixed his eye upon that piece of machinery, far up to the roof, by which the batches of pies went up to the shop, and by which flour and butter and other matters, always excepting meat, found their way down to him, an idea took possession of him.
What that idea was will show itself in another place.
CHAPTER C.
TODD TAKES HIS LAST WALK UP FLEET STREET AND TO BELL YARD.
The twelve o'clock batch of pies went up, and down came the little missive of Mrs. Lovett respecting the four o'clock lot to the cook; but no Mrs. Lovett made her appearance, to relieve Mrs. Stag from her duties in the shop.
"Ah," said that elongated lady, "it's all very well of Mrs. L. to say she would pay me for the day. I suppose she means to make a day of it, and that's the reason. Now, young man, what's for you?"
"A pork with a nob of veal in it to give it a relish," was the reply of the young scion of the law, to whom Stag had addressed herself.
"Go along with you, I don't want none o' your impertinence."