Diary of a Drug Fiend

King Lamus [ntervenes 257 -“ Hardly a salubrious neighbourhood,” he remarked. “T think we ought to celebrate the occasion by making a night of it in my studio, and to-morrow morning we must see about getting you some decent rooms.” I remembered that our supply of heroin was in Greek Street. “You know, Lamus,’”’ I stammered, ‘‘ I’m ashamed to admit it, but we really can’t get on without H. We ‘tried—in fact, once we got clean away—but we couldn’t - possibly go through that again.” _-“ Nothing to be ashamed of, my dear man,” returned our physician. ‘“‘ You can’t get on without eating. That’s no reason for stopping. All I ask you to do is to do it sensibly.” “Then you won’t cut us off?” put in Lou. “ Certainly not, why should I? You take as much as you want, and when you want, and how you want. ‘That’s no business of mine. My business is to remove the want. You say you cured yourselves, but you didn’t. You only cut off the drug; the want remained. And as soon as the opportunity for starting again arrived, you started again. Perhaps, in fact, you made the opportunity.” The man was really uncanny. I must confess it put me off, being hit every time like that when I wasn’t expecting it. But Lou took it in quite a different way. She was glad to be so thoroughly understood. She clapped her hands. I was amazed. It was the first time in months that I had ever seen her make the slightest movement that wasn’t absolutely necessary. “You're quite right,”’ she said. “ We said nothing to each other about it, and I hadn’t the slightest con- scious intention of doing what I did. But the moment I got to London I drove to the place where I knew I could get heroin. And when I got back, I found that Peter had been out trying to find the man who had sold him the cocaine before. I assure you it wasn’t deliberate.” “That’s exactly the trouble,” retorted Lamus.