Sweeney Todd walked into the back parlour and closed the door.
There was a strange sound suddenly, compounded of a rushing noise and then a heavy blow, immediately after which Sweeney Todd emerged from his parlour, and folding his arms, he looked upon the vacant chair where his customer had been seated, but the customer was gone, leaving not the slightest trace of his presence behind except his hat, and that Sweeney Todd immediately seized and thrust into a cupboard that was at one corner of the shop.
"What's that?" he said, "what's that? I thought I heard a noise."
"If you please, sir, I have forgot the money, and have run all the way back from St. Paul's churchyard."
In two strides Todd reached him, and clutching him by the arm he dragged him into the farther corner of the shop, and then he stood opposite to him, glaring him full in the face with such a demoniac expression that the boy was frightfully terrified.
"Speak!" cried Todd, "speak! and speak the truth, or your last hour has come. How long were you peeping through the door before you came in?"
"Peeping, sir?"
"Yes, peeping; don't repeat my words, but answer me at once, you will find it better for you in the end."
"I wasn't peeping, sir, at all."
Sweeney Todd drew a long breath as he then said, in a strange, shrieking sort of manner, which he intended, no doubt, should be jocose,—