Diary of a Drug Fiend

Over the Top | 33 embarrassed. For the first time in my life I didn’t know how to behave. A thought popped into my mind: it was simply fatigue—I needn’t bother about that. As if in answer to my thought, Lou took a small cut-glass bottle with a gold-chased top from her pocket, unscrewed it and shook out some cocaine on the back of her hand. She flashed a provocative glance in my direction. The studio suddenly filled with the reverberation of her chant :— ‘“O Thou naked virgin of love, that art caught in a net of wild roses! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O!” ‘‘ Quite so,” agreed King Lamus cheerfully. “ You'll excuse me, I know, if I ask whether you have any great experience of the effects of cocaine.” Lou glowered at him. I preferred to meet him frankly. I deliberately put a large dose on the back of my hand and sniffed it up. Before I had finished, the effect had occurred. I felt myself any man’s master. “Well, as a matter of fact,’’ I said superciliously, “ to-night’s the first time I ever took it, and it strikes me as pretty good stuff.” Lamus smiled enigmatically. ‘““ Ah, yes, what does the old poet say? Milton, is it ? ““Stab your demoniac smile to my brain, Soak me in cognac, love, and cocaine.’ ”’ “How silly you are,’”’ cried Lou. ‘ Cocaine wasn’t invented in the time of Milton.” “Was that Milton’s fault ?’’ retorted King Lamus. The inaptitude, the disconnectedness, of his thought was somehow disconcerting.