158 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
sincerity. I crushed down the realisation with furious
anger.
“T encourage you to take drugs,” he went on,
“exactly as I encourage you to fly. Drugs claim to
be every man’s master.
‘Is it such terrible odds—
- The heir of ages of wonder,
The crown of earth for an hour,
The master of tide and thunder
_ Against the juice of a flower ?
Ay! in the roar and the rattle
Of all the armies of sin,
This is the only battle
He never was known to win.’
You children are the flower of the new generation.
You have got to fear nothing. You have got to conquer
everything. You have got to learn to make use of
drugs as your ancestors learnt to make use of lightning.
You have got to stop at the word of command, and
go on at the word of command according to circum-
stances.”
He paused. The dire need of the drug kept Peter
alert. He followed the argument with intense activity.
“Quite,” he agreed, ‘‘ and just at the moment, the
word of command is ‘go on.’”’
The face of King Lamus flowered into a smile of
intense amusement; and the girl at the desk shook
her thin body as if she were being deliciously tickled.
Intuition told me why. They had heard the argument
before. a
“Very cleverly put, Sir Peter. It would look well
in a broad frame, very plain, of dark mahogany, over
the mantelpiece, perhaps.”
For some reason or other, the conversation was
pulling us together. Though we had had no dope, we
both felt very much better. Cockie fired his big
gun.