The creature had reached the end of the stem.  It had gained the amber mouthpiece.  It was within an inch of the smoker’s nose.  Still on it went.  It seemed to move with greater freedom on the amber.  It increased its rate of progress.  It was actually touching the foremost feature on the smoker’s countenance.  I expected to see it grip the wretched Bob, when it began to oscillate from side to side.  Its oscillations increased in violence.  It fell to the floor.  That same instant the narcotic prevailed.  Bob slipped sideways from the chair, the pipe still held tightly between his rigid jaws.

We were silent.  There lay Bob.  Close beside him lay the creature.  A few more inches to the left, and he would have fallen on and squashed it flat.  It had fallen on its back.  Its feelers were extended upward.  They were writhing and twisting and turning in the air.

Tress was the first to speak.

“I think a little brandy won’t be amiss.”  Emptying the remainder of the brandy into a glass, he swallowed it at a draught.  “Now for a closer examination of our friend.”  Taking a pair of tongs from the grate he nipped the creature between them.  He deposited it upon the table.  “I rather fancy that this is a case for dissection.”

He took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket.  Opening the large blade, he thrust its point into the object on the table.  Little or no resistance seemed to be offered to the passage of the blade, but as it was inserted the tentacula simultaneously began to writhe and twist.  Tress withdrew the knife.

“I thought so!” He held the blade out for our inspection.  The point was covered with some viscid-looking matter.  “That’s blood!  The thing’s alive!”

“Alive!”

“Alive!  That’s the secret of the whole performance!”

“But—­”

“But me no buts, my Pugh!  The mystery’s exploded!  One more ghost is lost to the world!  The person from whom I obtained that pipe was an Indian juggler—­up to many tricks of the trade.  He, or some one for him, got hold of this sweet thing in reptiles—­and a sweeter thing would, I imagine, be hard to find—­and covered it with some preparation of, possibly, gum arabic.  He allowed this to harden.  Then he stuck the thing—­still living, for those sort of gentry are hard to kill—­to the pipe.  The consequence was that when anyone lit up, the warmth was communicated to the adhesive agent—­again some preparation of gum, no doubt—­it moistened it, and the creature, with infinite difficulty, was able to move.  But I am open to lay odds with any gentleman of sporting tastes that this time the creature’s traveling days are done.  It has given me rather a larger taste of the horrors than is good for my digestion.”

With the aid of the tongs he removed the creature from the table.  He placed it on the hearth.  Before Brasher or I had a notion of what it was he intended to do he covered it with a heavy marble paper weight.  Then he stood upon the weight, and between the marble and the hearth he ground the creature flat.