30 September.—Mr. Harker arrived at nine o’clock. He got his wife’s wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be true, and judging by one’s own wonderful experiences, it must be, he is also a man of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, businesslike gentleman who came here today.

LATER.—After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wife’s transcript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it is . . .

Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Count’s hiding place! Goodness knows that we had enough clues from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters relating to the purchase of the house house were with the transcript. Oh, if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy! Stop! That way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again collecting material. He says that by dinner time they will be able to show a whole connected narrative. He thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Mrs. Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have found the dates otherwise.

I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those out-breaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire’s ultimate triumph? Stay. He is himself zoophagous, and in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of ‘master’. This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away. My friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, and then . . . So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of of his, so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to have a strait waistcoat ready in case of need.

I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional appearance, though it was rather low down, “My dear young friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before the mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!! Joseph!!!” Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.

“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here’s one or two little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do I,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy infancy? And may I—may I—?”

This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent, and then sat down again.

“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favorites with equal judgment! And yet I cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “see afore me One—and likewise drink to One—without again expressing—May I—may I—?”

I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass and turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned myself upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to my head.

Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of tongue (none of those out–of–the–way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry, poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophizing the fowl in the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble roof for one as—Call it a weakness, if you will,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “but may I? may I—?”

It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself with my knife, I don’t know.

“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which had the honor of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the honor. May—”

I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.

“We’ll drink her health,” said I.

“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid with admiration, “that’s the way you know ’em, sir!” (I don’t know who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person present); “that’s the way you know the noble–minded, sir! Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might,” said the servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, “to a common person, have the appearance of repeating— but may I—?”