I drew out a glass and examined it.

Decidedly the pyramid was metallic, but of finest, almost silken texture--and I could not place it among any of the known metals.

It certainly was none I had ever seen; yet it was as certainly metal.

It was striated--slender filaments radiating from tiny, dully lustrous points within the polished surface.
And suddenly I had the weird feeling that each of these points was an eye, peering up at me, scrutinizing me.

There came a startled cry from Dick.
"Look at the ring!" The ring was in motion! Faster the cubes moved; faster the circle revolved; the pyramids raised themselves, stood bolt upright on their square bases; the six rolling spheres touched them, joined the spinning, and with sleight-of-hand suddenness the ring drew together; its units coalesced, cubes and pyramids and globes threading with a curious suggestion of ferment.
With the same startling abruptness there stood erect, where but a moment before they had seethed, a little figure, grotesque; a weirdly humorous, a vaguely terrifying foot-high shape, squared and angled and pointed and ANIMATE--as though a child should build from nursery blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled with throbbing life.
A troll from the kindergarten! A kobold of the toys! Only for a second it stood, then began swiftly to change, melting with quicksilver quickness from one outline into another as square and triangle and spheres changed places.