"Not a bit of it! Depend upon it, the beast is bewitched. Even to my eye it looks as though it were, and to a trained eye like yours, Pugh! You've been looking for the devil a long time, and you've got him at last."
"I—I wish you wouldn't make those remarks, Tress. They jar on me."
"I confess," interpolated Brasher—I noticed that he had put the pipe down on the table as though he were tired of holding it—"that, to my thinking, such remarks are not appropriate. At the same time what you have told us is, I am bound to allow, a little curious. But of course what I require is ocular demonstration. I haven't seen the movement myself."
"No, but you very soon will do if you care to have a pull at the pipe on your own account. Do, Brasher, to oblige me! There's a dear!"
"It appears, then, that the movement is only observable when the pipe is smoked. We have at least arrived at step No. 1."
"Here's a match, Brasher! Light up, and we shall have arrived at step No. 2."
Tress lit a match and held it out to Brasher. Brasher retreated from its neighborhood.
"Thank you, Mr. Tress, I am no smoker, as you are aware. And I have no desire to acquire the art of smoking by means of a poisoned pipe."
Tress laughed. He blew out the match and threw it into the grate.
"Then I tell you what I'll do—I'll have up Bob."