The String of Pearls (1850), p. 672

" I do hope, sir, we shall soon have him," said Hardman. " It seems to me to be next thing to impossible he should escape us for long. Do you think he has any money, sir ?"
"He cannot have much, for all he has, if any, must be but the produce of depredation since his escape from Newgate. He certainly has not extensive means, Hardman."
"Then he must fall into our hands, sir. Julia, is that your mother just arrived, do you think?"
"Yes, pa, it is ma's step. She has been out to get something or another, but I don't know what, as I was out myself all the morning; but it is ma, I know."
Mrs. Hardman came into the room, looking very red and flushed, and with a large basket on her arm. She looked from one to the other of the assembled guests with surprise and horror.
"What's the matter?" said her husband. "Why wife, you look panic-stricken. What has happened?"
"Oh, gracious! where' s the gentleman?"
"The gentleman?" cried everybody.
"Yes, the lodger. The highly respectable gentleman who took the first-floor only a couple of hours ago. Oh, gracious, where is he? and a capital lodger too, who paid in advance, and didn't mind extras at all."
"But what lodger, mother ?" said Julia.
"Oh, mum, I forgot—I forgot"' said Martha, suddenly coming into the room,
" I forgot to tell Miss Julia, mum, that an old gentleman had taken the first
floor, mum, and gone to bed in the next room."
"In bed in the next room?" said Sir Richard Blunt.
"I am lost!" thought Todd. "I am lost now, I am quite lost! and the only thing I can do is to kill as many of them as possible, and then blow my own brains out."
"Do you mean to say, ma," said Julia, "that there's a gentleman asleep in the next room in the bed?"
"Lor!" said Ben, "you don't mean to say that, Mrs. Hardman?"
"He may be in bed, but if he is asleep," said Sir Richard, "he is a remarkable man; of course if we had had the least idea of such a thing, we should not have come up here; but here we were shown by the servant."
"Oh, yes, it's all that frightful Martha's fault. I'll—I'll kill—no—I'll discharge that odious hussy without a character, and leave her to drown herself! For Heaven's sake go down stairs all of you, and I'll go and speak to the old gentleman, and apologise to him."
"Let me go," said Ben, "and roll on him on the bed, and if that don't settle him I don't know what will."
"Shall I apologise to him?" said Sir Richard.
Todd nearly fainted when he heard this proposition ; but when Mrs. Hardman rejected it, and insisted upon going herself, he felt quite a gush of gratitude towards her, and breathed a little more freely once again.

CHAPTER CLVIII.
Todd's Fearful Adventures on the River

"Shall I lay hold of her," thought Todd, "and choke her the moment she comes into the room, or shall I answer her, and let her go again? Which will he the safest course? I suppose I must let her go, for she might possibly make a noise. Ah! how I should like to have my hand upon all their throats!"
Mrs. Hardman came into the room on tip-toe, leaving the folding-door just a little ajar.
"My dear sir," she said, "are you awake?"