Of course, the affair had lost nothing from many-tongued rumour, and the popular belief was, that Todd's house had been found full of dead bodies from the attics to the cellars, while Mrs. Lovett had been actually detected in the very act of scraping some dead man's bones, for tid-bits to make a veal pie of.
A dense crowd had assembled in Fleet Street, to have a look at Todd's now shut-up house, and that thoroughfare very soon, in consequence, became no thoroughfare at all. Bell Yard too was so completely blocked up, that the lawyers who were in the habit of using it as a short cut from the Temple to Lincoln's Inn, were forced to take the slight round of Chancery Lane instead; and the confusion and general excitement in the whole of the neighbourhood was immense.
But it was in Bow Street, and round the doors of the police-office, that the densest crowd, and the greatest excitement prevailed. There it was only with the greatest difficulty that the officers and others officially connected with the public office could get in and out of it as occasion required; and the three or four magistrates who thought proper to attend upon that occasion, had quite a struggle to get into the court at all.
By dint of great perseverance, our friends, with Sir Richard Blunt, at length succeeded in forcing a passage through the crowd, to the magistrates private entrance, and having once passed that, they were no longer in the smallest degree incommoded.
"Well, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, as he encountered that individual, "Have you been to Newgate this morning?"
"Rather, Sir Richard."
"Any news?"
"No. Only that Todd has been a trying it on a little, that's all."
"What do you mean?"
"Why he's only petikler anxious to save Jack Ketch any trouble on his account, that's all, Sir Richard; so he's been trying to put himself out o' this here world, and shove himself into t'other, without going through all the trouble of being hung, that's all, sir."