colour seemed to be a kind of iridescent grey veined with green; and

Gilman could see amidst his horror and bewilderment that one of the knobs

ended in a jagged break, corresponding to its former point of attachment

to the dream-railing.

Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming

aloud. This fusion of dream and reality was too much to bear. Still dazed,

he clutched at the spiky thing and staggered downstairs to Landlord

Dombrowski's quarters. The whining prayers of the superstitious loom-fixer

were still sounding through the mouldy halls, but Gilman did not mind them

now. The landlord was in, and greeted him pleasantly. No, he had not seen

that thing before and did not know anything about it. But his wife had

said she found a funny tin thing in one of the beds when she fixed the

rooms at noon, and maybe that was it. Dombrowski called her, and she

waddled in. Yes, that was the thing. She had found it in the young

gentleman's bed - on the side next the wall. It had looked very queer to

her, but of course the young gentleman had lots of queer things in his

room - books and curios and pictures and markings on paper. She certainly

knew nothing about it.

So Gilman climbed upstairs again in mental turmoil, convinced that he was

either still dreaming or that his somnambulism had run to incredible

extremes and led him to depredations in unknown places. Where had he got

this outre thing? He did not recall seeing it in any museum in Arkham. It

must have been somewhere, though; and the sight of it as he snatched it in