Diary of a Drug Fiend

Vedere Napoli e poi—pro patrid—mori 107 most ordinary things about the journey. I didn’t even know in which direction we were travelling, whether the Alps came next, or which tunnel we were taking; whether we passed tarough Florence, or the difference between Geneva and Genoa. Those who are familiar with the route will realise how hopelessly my mind was entangled. I hardly knew morn- ing from evening. I have described things with absolute confidence which could not possibly have taken place. We kept on getting up and looking at the map on the panels of the corridor, and I couldn’t make out where we were. We compared times and distances only to make confusion worse confounded. I went into the most obstruse astronomical calcula- tions as to whether we ought to put our watches on an hour or back an hour at the frontier ; and I don’t know to this day whether I came to any correct con- clusion. I had an even chance of being right; but there it stopped. I remember getting out to stretch our legs at Rome, and that we had a mad impulse to try to see the sights during the twenty minutes or so we had to wait. . I might have done it; but on the platform at Rome I was brought up with a shock. An impossible thing had happened. “Great Scot,” cried a voice from the window of a coach three ahead of our own. “ Of all the extraordinary coincidences! How are you ?” We looked up, hardly able to believe our ears. Who should it be but our friend Feccles | Well, of course, I’d rather have seen the devil himself. After all, I'd behaved to the man rather shabbily; and, incidentally, made a great fool of myself. But what surprised me on second glance was that he was travelling very much incognito. He was hardly recognisable. I don’t think I mentioned he had fair hair with a bald patch, and was clean shaven. But now his hair was dark; and a toupée silently rebuked Nature’s