Jacob again conducted the destroyer to the house. Again showed Drusilla, unconscious of her fate, knitting, knitting. There was a slight growl—a spring—an old woman’s scream—a yap, yap from the pug—and then the wall was leapt—and Peter Vandervermin was a widower. I will not follow the tiger to its banquet. Suffice it to say, the tiger ate and slept. However, very ill and feverish did the tiger awake in the morning. “Jacob,” cried the tiger, “what’s the matter with me? Phew! I can hardly move.” “Perhaps,” said Jacob, “my lord has just a stitch in his side.” “No, no,” said the tiger, “I feel ’em now; it’s that abominable old woman’s knitting needles.” “Every rose has its thorn, my lord,” said the ghost, joking as a ghost may be supposed to joke. “You never find a woman without pins and needles.” “Jacob,” cried the tiger, “either you come of a very bad family, or, after all, man-eating is by no means so wholesome—however pleasant it may be—as a hearty, simple meal off a buffalo, a deer, or anything of that sort.” “Then why, my lord,” urged the ghost, “why not return to the humbler diet?” “That’s all very well, Jacob. Why don’t men—with red noses and no insides—turn from arrack and new rum, and drink only at the diamond spring? I begin to feel myself no better than a drunkard: yes, I fear I’m a lost tiger. It’s very nice—very delicious to eat a man at night—but it’s like what I’ve heard of drink—what a headache it leaves in the morning! Ha!” cried the beast, “I’m afraid I’m making quite a man of myself. Look at my tongue, Jacob; it’s as hard and as dry, you might grind an axe upon it. Oh, that dreadful old woman!”—and the tiger closed its heavy, bloodshot eyes, and tried to sleep. Only three days past, and then the tiger leapt up, and licking itself all over—as though it was going out to an evening party, and wished to put the very best gloss upon its coat—the creature cried—“Come away, Jacob; I must have another Vandervermin.” “Oh, my lord,” cried the ghost, “think what you’ll suffer in the morning.” “_That_ for the morning,” cried the tiger, whisking its tail—“I tell you, Jacob, I intend to make a night of it. Slave, lead on.” And thus for three months, conducted by the fate-enforced ghost, did the tiger continue to sup off Vandervermins. Uncles and aunts, cousins male and female, in all eight, had the tiger devoured, when one night the brute carried off the ninth and last victim in the person of Justus Vandervermin, lawyer and usurer. The tiger—strange to say—devoured every bit of him; but it was the brute’s last morsel; it never could digest him. Justus Vandervermin remained, like so much india-rubber, in the vitals of the tiger. Nothing could stir the lawyer. “Jacob,” cried the brute, feeling its last hour approach. “I shall die, and your ghost will be at rest. I forgive you—but why—why didn’t you tell me that Justus was a lawyer?” And with these words the tiger died, and the ghost of Jacob Vandervermin was instantly at peace.