Diary of a Drug Fiend

8 The Diary of a Drug Fiend The result had been that he had steadily become a heavier and heavier drinker. I learnt at the hospital that seventy-five per cent. of the human bodyis composed of water; butin this case, as in the old song, it must have been that he was a relation of the McPherson who had a son, “That married Noah’s daughter And: nearly spoilt the flood By drinking all the water. And this he would have done, I really do believe it, But had that mixture been Three parts or more Glen Livet.” The slight figure of a young-old man with a bulbous nose to detract from his otherwise remarkable beauty, spoilt though it was by years of insane passions, came into the café. His cold blue eyes were shifty and malicious. One got the impression of some filthy creature of the darkness—a raider from another world looking about him for something to despoil. At his heels lumbered his jackal, a huge, bloated, verminous creature like a cockroach, in shabby black clothes, ill-fitting, unbrushed and stained, his linen dirty, his face bloated and pimpled, a horrible evil leer on his dripping mouth, with its furniture like a bombed grave- yard. The café sizzled as the men entered. They were notorious, if nothing else, and the leader was the Earl of Bumble. Every one seemed to scent some mischief in the air. The earl came up to the table next to mine, and stopped deliberately short. A sneer passed across his lips. He pointed to the two men. “Drunken Bardolph and Ancient Pistol,” he said, with his nose twitching with anger. Jack Fordham was not behindhand with the repartee. “Well roared, Bottom,’’ he replied calmly, as pat as if the whole scene had been rehearsed beforehand.