Diary of a Drug Fiend

The Gatto Fritto 117 one o’clock in the morning, and then we were to go to a certain drinking place, the Fauno Ebbrio, and as soon as the coast was clear he would pick us up and take us along to the Gatto Fritto, and we would know for the first time what life was really like. ‘Well, I call that a perfectly straight, decent, sensible programme. It’s the duty of every Englishman to learn as much of foreign affairs as he can without inter- fering with his business. That sort of knowledge will always come in useful in case of another European War. It was knowing that sort of thing that had put Feccles where he was in the Secret Service, the trusted confident of those mysterious intelligences that watch over the welfare of our beloved country. Thank you, that will conclude the evening’s entertain- ment. I will say this for Feccles. He always understood instinctively when he wasn’t wanted. So immedi- ately the arrangements were made, he excused himself hastily, because he had to go down to the Villa where his victim was staying, and fix a dictaphone in the room where he was going to have dinner. So I had Lou all to myself until he came with the disguises the next day in the afternoon. And I wasn’t going to waste a minute. - J admit I was pretty sick about the way the white cloud let me down. I’d have gone after the silly old sun myself if: I hadn’t been a married man. - However, there we were alone, alone for ever, Lou and I in Capri, it was all much too good to be true! Sunlight and moonlight and starlight! They were all in her eyes. And she handed out the cocaine with such a provocative gesture! I knew what it was to be insane. I could understand perfectly well why the silly fools that aren’t insane are afraid of being insane. I'd been that way myself when I didn’t know any better. : : This rotten little race of men measures the world by Its own standard. It is lost in the vastness of' the