dmiral Bell and Charles Holland argued now that they had a right to the
amount of money which Marmaduke Bannerworth had hidden somewhere, and
the old admiral reasoned upon it rather ingeniously, for he said,--

"I suppose you don't mean to dispute that the money belongs to somebody,
and in that case I should like to know who else it belonged to, if not
to you? How do you get over that, master Henry?"

"I don't attempt to get over it at all," said Henry; "all I say is, that
I do dislike the whole circumstances connected with it, and the manner
in which it was come by; and, now that we have a small independence, I
hope it will not be found. But, admiral, we are going to hold a family
consultation as to what we shall do, and what is to become of Varney. He
has convinced me of his relationship to our family, and, although his
conduct has certainly been extremely equivocal, he has made all the
amends in his power; and now, as he is getting old, I do not like to
throw him upon the wide world for a subsistence."

"You don't contemplate," said the admiral, "letting him remain with you,
do you?"

"No; that would be objectionable for a variety of reasons; and I could
not think of it for a moment."

"I should think not. The idea of sitting down to breakfast, dinner, tea,
and supper with a vampyre, and taking your grog with a fellow that sucks
other people's blood!"

"Really, admiral, you do not really still cling to the idea that Sir
Francis Varney is a vampyre."

"I really don't know; he clings to it himself, that's all I can say; and
I think, under those circumstances, I might as well give him the benefit
of his own proposition, and suppose that he is a vampyre."

"Really, uncle," said Charles Holland, "I did think that you had
discarded the notion."

"Did you? I have been thinking of it, and it ain't so desirable to be a
vampyre, I am sure, that any one should pretend to it who is not;
therefore, I take the fellow upon his own showing. He is a vampyre in
his own opinion, and so I don't see, for the life of me, why he should
not be so in ours."

"Well," said Henry, "waving all that, what are we to do with him?
Circumstances seem to have thrown him completely at our mercy. What are
we to do with him, and what is to become of him for the future?"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the admiral. "If he were ten times a
vampyre, there is some good in the fellow; and I will give him enough to
live upon if he will go to A