Diary of a Drug Fiend

218 The Diary of a Drug Fiend. We rang again and again. Then Peter got angry and went to see what was wrong. There isn’t a soul in the place! It’s perfectly incomprehensible. What could have happened to them all? Peter says it’s the Germans. Part of a plot to perse- cute him for what he did in the war. But I don’t think so at all. It says in a book that you have to get rid of every one if you're going to start the spiritual life. I expect my spiritual guide put it into their minds to go, but I’m very doubtful about Cockie. He’s not ready for any high development. Men are always revoltingly gross. Think how they are even about love. I must say this for Cockie, he’s all right about that. The very flower of purity—a perfect knight ! Yet we went through a period of a very evil character. No doubt we had to be purged of all our baser elements. There is a great sympathy between us at times, and it is not soiled by any animality. The only thing is I’m not sure whether it hasn’t been too great a strain for his mind—the process of purifi- cation. He certainly has some very queer ideas. Sometimes _ I catch him looking at me with some deep suspicion in his eyes. His mind is harping on the Germans. He broke out just now into a denunciation of Gretel Webster as a German spy, and rambled on from that to say something that I couldn’t properly understand. But the gist of it was apparently that as Gretel had introduced us more or less, I was being used to do him some harm. Of course ideas like this come to one when one’s hungry, and all this sprang up owing to the mysterious disappearance of the servants. There was nothing for it but for Peter to go to the inn and have food sent in. But I had the devil’s own job to get him to do it. His character lacks decision.