"Rather. You wouldn't have survived it at all."
"Indeed!"
"No. Now listen. I went to bed at a quarter after eleven, as usual. I didn't notice anything particular in the room."
"Did you peep under the bed?"
"No, I didn't. Well, as I was a-saying, to bed I went, and I didn't fasten the door; because, being a very sound sleeper, in case there was a fire, I shouldn't hear a word of it if I did."
"No," said another. "I recollect once—"
"Be so good as allow me to finish what I know, before you begin to recollect anything, if you please. As I was saying, I didn't lock the door, but I went to bed. Somehow or another, I did not feel at all comfortable, and I tossed about, first on one side, and then on the other; but it was all in vain; I only got, every moment, more and more fidgetty."
"And did you think of the vampyre?" said one of the listeners.
"I thought of nothing else till I heard my clock, which is on the landing of the stairs above my bed-room, begin to strike twelve."
"Ah! I like to hear a clock sound in the night," said one; "it puts one in mind of the rest of the world, and lets one know one isn't all alone."