Diary of a Drug Fiend

114 The Diary of a Drug Fiend into the most mysterious quarters. But everything that happened wove itself intoxicatingly into the tapestry of love. We went out on absurd adventures. Even when they were disappointing from the ordinary standpoint, the disappointment itself seemed to add piquancy to the joke. One couldn’t help being grateful to the man for his protecting care. We went into plenty of places where the innocent tourist is considered fair game; and his idiomatic Italian invariably deterred the would-be sportsman. Even at the hotel, he fought the manager over the weekly bill, and compelled him to accept a much lower figure than his dreams had indicated. Of course, most of his time was occupied with keeping watch on the man he was trailing ; and he kept us very amused with the account of his progress. - “JT shall never be grateful enough to you, if I bring this off as I think I shall,’”’ he said. “It will be the turning point in my official career. I don’t mind telling you they’ve treated me rather shabbily at home about one or two things I’ve done. But if I bag this bird, they can hardly say no to anything I may ask.” At the same time, it was clear that he took a genuine friendly interest in his love-birds, as he called us. He had had a disappointment himself, he said, and it had put him off the business personally, but he was glad to say it hadn’t soured his nature, and he took a real pleasure in seeing people so ideally happy as we were. The only thing, he said, that made him a little un- easy and discontented was that he hadn’t got in touch with the people who ran the Gatto Fritto, which was an extremely exciting and dangerous kind of night club which indulged in pleasures of so esoteric a kind that no other place in Europe had anything to compare with it,