Pumpkins' Glow: 200+ Eerie Tales for Halloween. Джек Лондон

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СКАЧАТЬ are forced to make ourselves useful, like the rest of the community; and we could not expect people to send their mad friends and relatives here, unless we took good care that their ends and views were answered by so doing. We make no remarks, and we ask no questions. Those are the principles upon which we have conducted business so successfully and so long; those are the principles upon which we shall continue to conduct it, and to merit, we hope, the patronage of the British public.'

      'Unquestionably, most unquestionably.'

      'You may as well introduce me to your patient at once, Mr Todd, for I suppose, by this time, he has been brought into this house.'

      'Certainly, certainly, I shall have great pleasure in showing him to you.'

      The madhouse keeper rose, and so did Mr Todd, and the former, pointing to the bottles and glasses on the table, said, 'When this business is settled, we can have a friendly glass together.'

      To this proposition Sweeney Todd assented with a nod, and then they both proceeded to what was called a reception-room in the asylum, and where poor Tobias had been conveyed and laid upon a table, when he showed slight symptoms of recovering from the state of insensibility into which he had fallen, and a man was sluicing water on his face by the assistance of a hearth broom, occasionally dipped into a pailful of that fluid.

      'Quite young,' said the madhouse keeper, as he looked upon the pale and interesting face of Tobias.

      'Yes,' said Sweeney Todd, 'he is young - more's the pity - and, of course, we deeply regret his present situation.'

      'Oh, of course, of course; but see, he opens his eyes, and will speak directly.'

      'Rave, you mean, rave!' said Todd; 'don't call it speaking, it is not entitled to the name. Hush, listen to him.'

      'Where am I?' said Tobias, 'where am I - Todd is a murderer. I denounce him.'

      'You hear - you hear,' said Todd.

      'Mad indeed,' said the keeper.

      'Oh, save me from him, save me from him,' said Tobias, fixing his eyes upon Mr Fogg. 'Save me from him, it is my life he seeks, because I know his secrets - he is a murderer - and many a person comes into his shop who never leaves it again in life, if at all.'

      'You hear him,' said Todd, 'was there anybody so mad?'

      'Desperately mad,' said the keeper. 'Come, come, young fellow, we shall be under the necessity of putting you in a straight waistcoat, if you go on in that way. We must do it, for there is no help in such cases if we don't.'

      Todd slunk back into the darkness of the apartment, so that he was not seen, and Tobias continued, in an imploring tone.

      'I do not know who you are, sir, or where I am; but let me beg of you to cause the house of Sweeney Todd, the barber, in Fleet-street, near St Dunstan's church, to be searched, and there you will find that he is a murderer. There are at least a hundred hats, quantities of walking-sticks, umbrellas, watches and rings, all belonging to unfortunate persons who, from time to time, have met with their deaths through him.'

      'How uncommonly mad!' said Fogg.

      'No, no,' said Tobias, 'I am not mad; why call me mad, when the truth or falsehood of what I say can be ascertained so easily? Search his house, and if those things be not found there, say that I am mad, and have but dreamed of them. I do not know how he kills the people. That is a great mystery to me yet, but that he does kill them I have no doubt - I cannot have a doubt.'

      'Watson,' cried the madhouse keeper, 'hilloa! here, Watson.'

      'I am here, sir,' said the man, who had been dashing water upon poor Tobias's face.

      'You will take this lad, Watson, as he seems extremely feverish and unsettled. You will take him, and shave his head, Watson, and put a straight waistcoat upon him, and let him be put in one of the dark, damp cells. We must be careful of him, and too much light encourages delirium and fever.'

      'Oh! no, no!' cried Tobias; 'what have I done that I should be subjected to such cruel treatment? What have I done that I should be placed in a cell? If this be a madhouse, I am not mad. Oh, have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me!'

      'You will give him nothing but bread and water, Watson, and the first symptoms of his recovery, which will produce better treatment, will be his exonerating his master from what he has said about him, for he must be mad so long as he continues to accuse such a gentleman as Mr Todd of such things; nobody but a mad man or a mad boy would think of it.'

      'Then,' said Tobias, 'I shall continue mad, for if it be madness to know and to aver that Sweeney Todd, the barber, of Fleet-street, is a murderer, mad am I, for I know it, and aver it. It is true, it is true.

      'Take him away, Watson, and do as I desired you. I begin to find that the boy is a very dangerous character, and more viciously mad than anybody we have had here for a considerable time.'

      The man named Watson seized upon Tobias, who again uttered a shriek something similar to the one which had come from his lips when Sweeney Todd clutched hold of him in his mother's room. But they were used to such things at that madhouse, and cared little for them, so no one heeded the cry in the least, but poor Tobias was carried to the door half maddened in reality by the horrors that surrounded him.

      Just as he was being conveyed out, Sweeney Todd stepped up to him, and putting his mouth close to his ear, he whispered, 'Ha! ha! Tobias! how do you feel now? Do you think Sweeney Todd will be hung, or will you die in the cell of a madhouse?'

      XXIII. The New Cook of Mrs. Lovett Gets Tired of His Situation

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      From what we have already had occasion to record about Mrs Lovett's new cook, who ate so voraciously in the cellar, our readers will no doubt be induced to believe that he was a gentleman likely enough soon to tire of his situation.

      To a starving man, and one who seemed completely abandoned even by hope, Lovett's bake-house, with an unlimited leave to eat as much as possible, must of course present itself in the most desirable and lively colours; and no wonder, therefore, that banishing all scruple, a man so pleased, would take the situation with very little enquiry.

      But people will tire of good things; and it is a remarkably well-authenticated fact that human nature is prone to be discontented.

      And those persons who are well acquainted with the human mind, and who know well how little value people soon set upon things which they possess, while those which they are pursuing, and which seem to be beyond their reach, assume the liveliest colours imaginable, adopt various means of turning this to account.

      Napoleon took good care that the meanest of his soldiers should see in perspective the possibility of grasping a marshal's baton.

      Confectioners at the present day, when they take a new apprentice, tell him to eat as much as he likes of those tempting tarts and sweetmeats, one or two of which before had been a most delicious treat.

      The soldier goes on fighting away, and never gets the marshal's baton. The confectioner's boy crams himself with Banbury cakes, gets dreadfully sick, and never touches one afterwards.

      And now, to revert СКАЧАТЬ