Is penceil lead a conductor?

Pencil LEAD no longer contains the metal, lead, as it used to. Now, it is a mixture of graphite and clay. The more clay, the harder the "lead" in the pencil. So, today, what we have in a pencil is the same thing found in a resistor, a composition resistor, as opposed to a metallic or wire-wound. The more clay, the poorer conductor it is, the higher the resistance value. It is just that a common resistor is calibrated and the pencil lead is not. So, in a sense it IS a conductor, but only a partial conductor, which makes it effectively a resistor.