"Till then, good-night!"
Mrs. Lovett left the grating; and as she went up to the shop, she muttered to herself—
"They will, when they find him here, suspect he is an accomplice. Well, let them hang him, for all I care. What can it matter to me?"
CHAPTER CXII.
MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IT IS EASIER TO PLAN THAN TO EXECUTE.
It wants five minutes to nine, and Mrs. Lovett's shop is filling with persons anxious to devour or to carry away one or more of the nine o'clock batch of savoury, delightful, gushing gravy pies.
Many of Mrs. Lovett's customers paid her in advance for the pies, in order that they might be quite sure of getting their orders fulfilled when the first batch should make its gracious appearance from the depths below.
"Well, Jiggs," said one of the legal fraternity to another, "how are you to-day, old fellow? What do you bring it in?"
"Oh! I ain't very blooming. The fact is, the count and I, and a few others, made a night of it last evening; and somehow or another I don't think whiskey-and-water, half-and-half, and tripe, go well together."
"I should wonder if they did."
"And so I've come for a pie just to settle my stomach; you see I'm rather delicate."