at length he said,--

"Well, I'm blowed, here's a transmogrification; he's consolidified
himself into a blessed brick--my eye, here's a curiosity."

"But you don't mean to say that's the butcher, Dick?" said the boy.

Dick reached over, and gave him a tap on the head with the brick.

"There!" he said, "that's what I calls occular demonstration. Do you
believe it now, you blessed infidel? What's more natural? He was an
out-and-out brick while he was alive; and he's turned to a brick now
he's dead."

"Give it to me, Dick," said the boy; "I should like to have that brick,
just for the fun of the thing."

"I'll see you turned into a pantile first. I sha'n't part with this
here, it looks so blessed sensible; it's a gaining on me every minute as
a most remarkable likeness, d----d if it ain't."

By this time the bewilderment of the mob had subsided; now that there
was no dead butcher to look upon, they fancied themselves most
grievously injured; and, somehow or other, Dick, notwithstanding all his
exertions in their service, was looked upon in the light of a showman,
who had promised some startling exhibition and then had disappointed his
auditors.

The first intimation he had of popular vengeance was a stone thrown at
him, but Dick's eye happened to be upon the fellow who threw it, and
collaring him in a moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head,
which confused his faculties for a week.

"Hark ye," he then cried, with a loud voice, "don't interfere with me;
you know it won't go down. There's something wrong here; and, as one of
yourselves, I'm as much interested in finding out what it is as any of
you can possibly be. There seems to be some truth in this vampyre
business; our old friend, the butcher, you see, is not in his grave;
where is he then?"

The mob looked at each other, and none attempted to answer the question.

"Why, of course, he's a vampyre," said Dick, "and you may all of you
expect to see him, in turn, come into your bed-room windows with a
burst, and lay hold of you like a million and a half of leeches rolled
into one."

There was a general expression of horror, and then Dick continued,--

"You'd better all of you go home; I shall have no hand in pulling up any
more of the coffins--this is a dose for me. Of course you can do what
you like."

[Illustration]

"Pull them all up!" cried a voice; "pull them all up! Let's see how many
vampyres there are in the churchyard."

"Well, it's