"You may say that. There's no knowing what they will or won't do, confound them! If they'd act like men, and pay for what they have, why, then I shouldn't care much about them; but it don't do to have other people in the bar."
"I should think not, indeed; that would alter the scale of your profits, I reckon."
"It would make all the difference to me. Business," added the landlord, "conducted on that scale, would become a loss; and a man might as well walk into a well at once."
"So I should say. Have many such occurrences as these been usual in this part of the country?" inquired the stranger.
"Not usual at all," said the landlord; "but the fact is, the whole neighbourhood has run distracted about some superhuman being they call a vampyre."
"Indeed!"—"Yes; and they suspected the unfortunate man who has been lying up-stairs, a corpse, for some days."
"Oh, the man they have just taken in the coffin to bury?" said the stranger.
"Yes, sir, the same."
"Well, I thought perhaps somebody of great consequence had suddenly become defunct."—"Oh, dear no; it would not have caused half the sensation; people have been really mad."
"It was a strange occurrence, altogether, I believe, was it?" inquired the stranger.—"Indeed it was, sir. I hardly know the particulars, there have been so many tales afloat; though they all concur in one point, and that is, it has destroyed the peace of one family."