“When you pink me?”

“Precisely.”

“Upon my word, you take these affairs easy.  I suppose you have had a few of them?”

“Oh, a good number.  People like yourself worry me into them, I don’t like the trouble, I assure you; it is no amusement to me.  I would rather, by a great deal, make some concession than fight, because I will fight with swords, and the result is then so certain that there is no danger in the matter to me.”

“Hark you, Sir Francis Varney.  You are either a very clever actor, or a man, as you say, of such skill with your sword, that you can make sure of the result of a duel.  You know, therefore, that it is not fair play on your part to fight a duel with that weapon.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon there.  I never challenge anybody, and when foolish people will call me out, contrary to my inclination, I think I am bound to take what care of myself I can.”

“D—­n me, there’s some reason in that, too,” said the admiral; “but why do you insult people?”

“People insult me first.”

“Oh, nonsense!”

“How should you like to be called a vampyre, and stared at as if you were some hideous natural phenomenon?”

“Well, but—­”

“I say, Admiral Bell, how should you like it?  I am a harmless country gentleman, and because, in the heated imaginations of some member of a crack-brained family, some housebreaker has been converted into a vampyre, I am to be pitched upon as the man, and insulted and persecuted accordingly.”

“But you forget the proofs.”

“What proofs?”

“The portrait, for one.”

“What!  Because there is an accidental likeness between me and an old picture, am I to be set down as a vampyre?  Why, when I was in Austria last, I saw an old portrait of a celebrated court fool, and you so strongly resemble it, that I was quite struck when I first saw you with the likeness; but I was not so unpolite as to tell you that I considered you were the court fool turned vampyre.”

“D—­n your assurance!”

“And d—­n yours, if you come to that.”

The admiral was fairly beaten.  Sir Francis Varney was by far too long-headed and witty for him.  After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—­“I don’t pretend to a gift of the gab.  D—­n me, it ain’t one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you sha’n’t keep me down.”

“Very good, sir.”

“It is not very good.  You shall hear from me.”

“I am willing.”

“I don’t care whether you are willing or not.  You shall find that when once I begin to tackle an enemy, I don’t so easily leave him.  One or both of us, sir, is sure to sink.”

“Agreed.”

“So say I. You shall find that I’m a tar for all weathers, and if you were a hundred and fifty vampires all rolled into one, I’d tackle you somehow.”