Uh, just an unfinished sketch that ended up gathering dust in a dark place... like so many others.

It depicts (or at least, it was going to) the scene where Sweeney has retrieved the runaway Tobias from his mother’s house and resolves to get rid of him permanently by having him locked away in Fogg’s Asylum.

The description comes directly from The String of Pearls:

‘The barber strode through the Temple, carrying the boy, who seemed not at all in a hurry to recover from the nervous and partial state of suffocation into which he had fallen.
As they passed through the gate, opening into Fleet Street, the porter, who knew the barber well by sight, said, 'Hilloa, Mr Todd, is that you? Why, who are you carrying?'
'Yes, it's I,' said Todd, 'and I am carrying my apprentice boy, Tobias Ragg, poor fellow.'
' Poor fellow! why, what's the matter with him?'
'I can hardly tell you, but he seems to me and to his mother to have gone out of his senses. Good-night to you, good-night. I'm looking for a coach.'
'Good-night, Mr Todd; I don't think you'll get one nearer than the market - what a kind thing now of him to carry the boy! It ain't every master would do that; but we must not judge of people by their looks, and even Sweeney Todd, though he has a face that one would not like to meet in a lonely place on a dark night, may be a kindhearted person.'
Sweeney Todd walked rapidly down Fleet Street, towards old Fleet Market, which was then in all its glory, if that could be called glory which consisted in all sorts of filth enough to produce a pestilence within the city of London.’

(Artwork © Leona Preston 2008)


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