I think it is a planchette - and it is lost down a conduit - a drain.

I sing a version where he gets a broom stick, a clothes prop, our terrier, and lastly gunpowder, the result of the first three - still he could na faish it, the latter results in the destruction of the street - he's blaed down all the housen.

Drains - or rather, sewers tend to explode rather spectacularly - there were drain explosions in various places, and I think there was a particularly impressive one in Manchester (England)- someone took a photograph of it for the papers.

Anne