rd me, and toward the tip of my nose. So impressed was I by this idea
that I took the pipe out of my mouth and minutely examined the beast.
Really, the delusion was excusable. So cunningly had the artist wrought
that he succeeded in producing a creature which, such was its uncanniness,
I could only hope had no original in nature.
Replacing the pipe between my lips I took several whiffs. Never had
smoking had such an effect on me before. Either the pipe, or the creature
on it, exercised some singular fascination. I seemed, without an instant's
warning, to be passing into some land of dreams. I saw the beast, which
was perched upon the bowl, writhe and twist. I saw it lift itself bodily
from the meerschaum.
II
"Feeling better now?"
I looked up. Joseph Tress was speaking.
"What's the matter? Have I been ill?"
"You appear to have been in some kind of swoon."
Tress's tone was peculiar, even a little dry.
"Swoon! I never was guilty of such a thing in my life."
"Nor was I, until I smoked that pipe."
I sat up. The act of sitting up made me conscious of the fact that I had
been lying down. Conscious, too, that I was feeling more than a little
dazed. It seemed as though I was waking out of some strange, lethargic
sleep--a kind of feeling which I have read of and heard about, but never
before experienced.
"Where am I?"
"You're on the couch in your own room. You _were_ on the floor; but I
thought it would be better to pick you up and place you on the
couch--though no one performed the same kind office to me when I was on
the floor."
Again Tress's tone was distinctly dry.
"How came _you_ here?"
"Ah, that's the question." He rubbed his chin--a habit of his which has
annoyed me more than once before. "Do you think you're sufficiently
recovered to enable you to understand a little simple explanation?" I
stared at him, amazed. He went on stroking his chin. "The truth is that
when I sent you the pipe I made a slight omission."
"An omission?"
"I omitted to advise you not to smoke it."
"And why?"
"Because--well, I've reason to believe the thing is drugged."
"Drugged!"
"Or poisoned."
"Poisoned!" I was wide awake enough then. I jumped off the couch with a
celerity which proved it.
"It is this way. I became its owner in rather a singular manner." He
paused, as if for me to make a remark; but I was silent. "It is not often
that I smoke a specimen, but, for some reason, I did smoke this.
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