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.

While the execution was still proceeding, Bob sat up upon the floor.

"Hollo!" he asked, "what's happened?"

"We've emptied the bottle, Bob," said Tress. "But there's another where
that came from. Perhaps you could drink another tumblerful, my boy?"

Bob drank it!

FOOTNOTE

"Those gentry are hard to kill." Here is fact, not fantasy.
Lizard yarns no less sensational than this Mystery Story can be
found between the covers of solemn, zoological textbooks.

Reptiles, indeed, are far from finicky in the matters of air,
space, and especially warmth. Frogs and other such
sluggish-blooded creatures have lived after being frozen fast in
ice. Their blood is little warmer than air or water, enjoying no
extra casing of fur or feathers.

Air and food seem held in light esteem by lizards. Their blood
need not be highly oxygenated; it nourishes just as well when
impure. In temperate climes lizards lie torpid and buried all
winter; some species of the tropic deserts sleep peacefully all
summer. Their anatomy includes no means for the continuous
introduction and expulsion of air; reptilian lungs are little
more than closed sacs, without cell structure.

If any further zoological fact wer