Read "Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street" by Anonymous online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
One, two, three, tour, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Yes, it is nine at last. It strikes by old St. Dunstan's church clock, and in weaker strains the chronometical machine at the pie-shop echoes the sound. What excitement there is to get at the pies when they shall come! Mrs. Lovett lets down the square moveable platform that goes on pullies in the cellar; some machinery, which requires only a handle to be turned, brings up a hundred pies in a tray. These are eagerly seized by parties who have previously paid, and such a smacking of lips ensues as never was known.
Down goes the platform for the next hundred, and a gentlemanly man says--