Is there any news stirring, sir?"

"Nothing that I know of, Mr. Todd, except it's the illness of Mr.

Cummings, the overseer. They say he got home about 12 to his own

house, in Chancery-lane, and ever since then he has been as sick as a

dog, and all they can get him to say is, 'Oh, those pies-oh, those

pies!'"

"Very odd, sir."

"Hilloa!--I think you have cut me."

"No, no-we can't cut anybody for three-halfpence, sir. I think I will

just give you another lather, sir, before I polish you off. And so you

have the pearls with you; well, how odd things come round, to be

sure."

"What do you mean?"

"This slaving-brush is just in a good state now. Always as a shaving-

brush is on the point of wearing out, it's the best. Charley, you will

go at once to Mr. Cummings, and ask if he's any better; you need not

hurry, that's a good lad. I am not at all angry with you now. And so,

sir, they think at home that you have gone after some business over

the water, do they, and not have the least idea that you have come to

be shaved? There, be off, Charley--shut the door, that's a good lad,

bless you."

When Johanna came back, the tobacconist was gone.

"What has happened? Good God! what can have happened!" thought

Johanna, as she staggered back, until she reached the shaving chair,

Into which she cast herself for support. Her eyes fall upon the arm

which she had taken such a shaving off with the razor, but all was

perfectly whole and correct; there was not the least mark of the cut

that so recently had been given to it; and, lost in wonder, Johanna,

for more than a minute, continued looking for the mark of the injury

she knew could not have been, by any possibility, effaced.

And yet she found it not, although there was the chair, just as usual,

with its wide-spreading arms and its worn, tarnished paint and

gilding. No wonder that Johanna rubbed her eyes, and asked herself if

she were really awake.

What could account for such a phenomenon? The chair was a fixture too,

and the others in the shop were of a widely different make and

construction, so it could not have been changed.

"Alas! alas!" mourned Johanna, "my mind is full of horrible surmises,

and yet I can form no rational conjecture. I suspect everything, and

knowing nothing. What can I do? What ought I to do, to relieve myself

from this state of horrible suspense? Am I really in a place where, by

some frightful ingenuity, murder has become bold and familiar, or can

It be all a delusion?"

CHAPTER XII.

The handle of Sweeney Todd's shop door turned and a man presented

himself, and Todd saw that the visitor was a substantial-looking

farmer, with dirty top-boots, an if he had just come off a journey.

"Well, master," said the visitor, "I wants a clean shave." "Oh," said

Todd, not in the best of humours.

"It's rather late; but I suppose you would not like to wait till

morning, for I don't know if I have any hot water."

"Oh, cold will do."

"Cold? Oh, dear no; we never shave in cold water; and if you must, you

must; so sit down, sir, and we will soon settle the business."

"Thank you, thank you. I can't go to bed comfortable without a clean

shave, do you see? I have come up I from Braintree with beasts on

commission, and I'm staying at the Bull's Head, you see."

"Oh, indeed," said Todd, as he adjusted the shaving cloth, "the Bull's

Head."

"Yes, master; why I brought up a matter o' 220 beasts, I did, do you

see, and was on my pooney, as good a stepper as you'd wish to see; and