The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Aye, Ragg, just speak to him; of course he is well acquainted with your voice, and it may have the effect of greatly rousing him from his lethargic condition.” Poor Mrs. Ragg considered that she had some very extraordinary post to perform, and accordingly she collected lo her aid all her learning, which, interrupted by her tears, and now and then by a sob, which she had to gulp down like a large globule of castor oil, had certainly rather a droll effect. “My dear Tobias—my dear—lie-a-bed, sluggard, you know—vwell, I never—Put the kettle on, Polly, and let’s all have tea. Tobias, my dear—bless us and save us, are you going to stay in bed all day?” Another groan from Tobias. “Well, my dear, perhaps you won’t mind getting up and just running towards the corner for a bunch of watercresses? Dear heart alive, there goes the muffin-man like a lamplighter.” It was by such domestic themes that Mrs. Ragg sought to recall the wandering senses of poor Tobias to a cognizance of the present. But alas! his thoughts were still in the dim and misty land of visions. Suddenly he spoke— “Hush—hush! There they come!—elephants!—elephants!—on—on—on. Now for the soldiers, and all mad—mad—mad! Hide me in the straw—deep in a world of straw. Hush! He comes. Sing, oh sing again! —and he—he will not suspect.” The surgeon made a sign to Mrs. Ragg to speak again. “Why, Tobias, my dear, what are you talking about? Do you mean the Elephant and Castle?” “Call to his remembrance,” said the surgeon, “some old scenes.” “Yes, sir, but when one’s heart and all that sort of thing is in one’s mouth it’s very difficult to recollect things oneself, Tobias—” “Yes—yes. Ha—ha!” It was a low, plaintive, strange laugh that came from the poor boy whose mind had been so overthrown, and it jarred upon the feelings of all who heard it. “Tobias, do you recollect the little cottage down the lane at Holloway, where we lived, and the cock roaches, and the strange cat, you know, Tobias, that would not go away? Don’t you recollect, Tobias, how the coals there were all slates, and how your poor father, as is dead and gone—” “Yes, I see him now.” Mrs. Ragg gave a faint scream. “Father!—father!” said Tobias, as he held out his arms, and the big tears rolled down his cheeks. “Father—father, Todd has not got me now. Don’t cry so, father. Stand out of the way of the elephants.” “My dear! my dear!” cried Mrs. Ragg, “do you want to break my heart?” Tobias rose to a sitting position in the bed, and looked his mother in the face. “Are you, too, mad?” he said. “Are you, too, mad? Did you tell of Todd>” “Yes, the only way,” said Colonel Jeffery, “for people not to be mad, is to tell of Todd.” “Yes—yes.” “And so you, Tobias, will tell us all you know. That is what we want you to do, and then you will be quite happy and comfortable for the remainder of your days, and live with your mother again far from any apprehension from Todd. Do you understand me?” Tobias opened his mouth several times in an eager, gasping sort of manner, as though he would have said something rapidly, but he could not. He placed his hands upon his brain, and rocked to and fro for a few moments, and then he broke out into the same low, peculiar laugh that had before so strangely affected Colonel Jeffery and the others who were there present in that room. The surgeon shook his head as he said, mournfully— “Tt is of no use!” “Do you really think so?” said the colonel. “For the present, I am convinced that it is of no use to attempt to recall his wandering senses. Time will do wonders, and he has the one grand element of youth in his favour. That, as well as time, will do wonders. The case is a bad one, and the shock the brain of this lad has received must be a most fearful one.” “Do not,” said Sir Richard Blunt, “give up so readily, Mrs. Ragg; I would have you try him again. Speak to him again of his father —that seemed to be the topic that most moved him.” Mrs. Ragg could hardly do so for her tears, but she managed to stammer out— “Tobias, do you recollect when your father bought you the rabbit, and out of vexation, the creature eat its way out of a willow-work cage in the night? Do you remember your poor father’s funeral, Tobias, and how we went, you and I, my poor boy, to take the last look at the only one who—who—who—” Mrs. Ragg could get no further. “Ha—ha—ha!” laughed Tobias, “who told of Todd?” “Who is this Todd,” said the surgeon, “that he continually speaks of, and shudders at the very name of?” Colonel Jeffery glanced at Sir Richard Blunt, and the latter, who wished the affair by no means to transpire, merely said— “We are quite as much in the dark as you, sir. It is just what we should like to know, who this Todd is, whose very name seems to hold the imagination of this poor boy in a grasp of iron. I begin to think that nothing more can be done now.” “Nothing, gentlemen, you may depend,” said the surgeon. “How old is the lad?” CORniclooo S CO)