o tall to be any good."

"I shouldn't like him to have laid hold of me, though, tall as he is;
and then he would have lifted me up high enough to break my neck, when
he let me fall."

The mob routed about the room, tore everything out of its place, and as
the object of their search seemed to be far enough beyond their reach,
their courage rose in proportion, and they shouted and screamed with a
proportionate increase of noise and bustle; and at length they ran about
mad with rage and vexation, doing all the mischief that was in their
power to inflict.

Then they became mischievous, and tore he furniture from its place, and
broke it in pieces, and then amused themselves with breaking it up,
throwing pieces at the pier-glasses, in which they made dreadful holes;
and when that was gone, they broke up the frames.

Every hole and corner of the house was searched, but there was no Sir
Francis Varney to be found.

"The cellars, the cellars!" shouted a voice.

"The cellars, the cellars!" re-echoed nearly every pair of lips in the
whole place; in another moment, there was crushing an crowding to get
down into the cellars.

"Hurray!" said one, as he knocked off the neck of the bottle that first
came to hand.

"Here's luck to vampyre-hunting! Success to our chase!"

"So say I, neighbour; but is that your manners to drink before your
betters?"

So saying, the speaker knocked the other's elbow, while he was in the
act of lifting the wine to his mouth; and thus he upset it over his face
and eyes.

"D--n it!" cried the man; "how it makes my eyes smart! Dang thee! if I
could see, I'd ring thy neck!"

"Success to vampyre-hunting!" said one.

"May we be lucky yet!" said another.

"I wouldn't be luckier than this," said another, as he, too, emptied a
bottle. "We couldn't desire better entertainment, where the reckoning is
all paid."

"Excellent!"

"Very good!"

"Capital wine this!"

"I say, Huggins!"

"Well," said Huggins.

"What are you drinking?"

"Wine."

"What wine?"

"Danged if I know," was the reply. "It's wine, I suppose; for I know it
ain't beer nor spirits; so it must be wine."

"Are you sure it ain't bottled men's blood?"

"Eh?"

"Bottled blood, man! Who knows what a vampyre drinks? It may be his
wine. He may feast upon that before he goes to bed of a night, drink
anybody's health, and make himself cheerful on bottled blood!"

"Oh, danged! I'm so sick; I wish I hadn't taken the stuff. It m