"A vampyre! Pooh, pooh!"
"Oh no! Sir Francis Varney is a vampyre! There can be no sort of doubt about it. You have only to look at him, and you will soon be satisfied of that. See his great sharp teeth in front, and ask yourself what they are for, and you will soon find the answer. They are to make holes with in the bodies of his victims, through which he can suck their blood!"
The officer looked at the man in astonishment for a few moments, as if he doubted his own ears, and then he said,—
"Are you serious?"
"I am ready to swear to it."
"Well, I have heard a great deal about popular superstition, and thought I had seen something of it; but this is decidedly the worst case that ever I saw or heard of. You had better go home, my man, than, by your presence, countenance such a gross absurdity."
"For all that," said the man, "Sir Francis Varney is a vampyre—a blood-sucker—a human blood-sucker!"
"Get away with you," said the officer, "and do not repeat such folly before any one."
The man almost jumped when he heard the tone in which this was spoken, for the officer was both angry and contemptuous, when he heard the words of the man.
"These people," he added, turning to the sergeant, "are ignorant in the extreme. One would think we had got into the country of vampires, instead of a civilised community."