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. I commenced to smoke it, that is. How long I continued to smoke it is more than I can say. It had on me the same peculiar effect which it appears to have had on you. When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the floor." "On the floor?"