The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 269: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER LXXVIII. BIG BEN CREATES A SENSATION. TITLE AS PRINTED: Colonel Jeffery Opens His Eyes. Arabella was weeping, so that for some little time she could say nothing more to Ben; and he did not, in the profundity of his imagination, very well know what to say to her, except now and then muttering the maxim “easy does it,” which Ben thought singularly applicable to all humans; this was a state of things which could not last; and Arabella Wilmot, nerving herself sufficiently to speak in a few minutes, said to Ben in a low self-deprecatory tone— “Oh, sir, I—I—have done something very wrong.” “Eh?” said Ben, opening his eyes to their utmost. “Yes,” added Arabella, “very wrong, indeed.” “Humph!” “You would not probably have expected it of me, Mr. Ben, would you now?” “Well, a-hem!” said Ben. “Easy does it.” “T am a wicked—wicked girl.” “Oh, dear—oh, dear!” said Ben. “You cannot guess, Mr. Ben, what I have done; but I feel I ought to tell you, and it will be quite a relief to me to do so.” Ben shook his head. “T tell you what it is, my dear,” he said. “Your best plan is to go and tell your mother, my dear. That’s the proper person to tell. She is sure to find it out somehow or another; and you had better tell her at once, and then—Easy does it.” “My mother? Tell my mother? Oh, no—no—no!” “Well, if you have got any respectable old aunt now, who is a good, kind old soul, and would not make too much fuss, you had better tell her; but goodness gracious, my dear, what puts it into your head to tell me?” “Because I think you are kind-hearted.” “Well, but—well, but—” “And, then, of course, as you are mixed up, you know, Mr. Ben, in the whole transaction, it is only proper that you should know what has happened at last.” Ben turned fairly round, and looked down into the face of Arabella Wilmot with such a coarse expression of alarm upon his face, that at any other than so serious a time she must have laughed. “Me?” he cried. “Me?” “Yes, Mr. Ben.” “Me mixed up in the—the—Oh dear!” “Ah, Mr. Ben, you know you are by far too kind not to be; and so I feel as though it would be quite a relief to me to tell you everything.” “Everything?” “Yes, all—all.” “Not all the particulars, surely. Come—come. I ain’t an old woman, you know, my dear.” “An old woman, Ben?” “No, my dear, I say I ain’t an eldery female, so I don’t think I ought to listen to all the particulars, do you know. Come—come, you go home now, and say no more about it to me. Easy does it, you know; and keep your own counsel. I won’t say a word; but don’t you, because you are in such a state of mind as you hardly know what you are about, go on blubbering to me about all the particulars, when perhaps to-morrow you’ll give one of your pretty little ears that you had not said a word to me about it.” “Alas!—Alas!” “Pho! Pho! Easy does it.” “Who am I to cling to but you?” “Cling to me? Perhaps you’ll say it’s me?” “What’s you, Mr. Ben? Explain yourself. How strange you talk. What do you mean, Mr. Ben?” “Well, that’s cool,” said Ben. “What’s cool?” “T tell you what it is, Miss Arabella W., I’m disappointed in you; ain’t you ashamed to look me in the face?” “Ashamed?” “Yes, positively ashamed?” “No, Mr. Ben. I may regret the indiscretion that is past; but I cannot see in it anything to be ashamed of.” CORniclooo S CO)