Diary of a Drug Fiend

The Giitter on the Snow 77 There was in this, however, hardly any element of joy. I was back to my normal self, but not to what you might call good form. I was perfectly able to do anything required, but the idea of doing it didn’t appeal. I thought a bath and a shower would put me right; and I certainly felt a very different man by the time I had got my clothes on. , When I came back into the sitting-room, I found Lou dancing daintily round the table. She went for me like a bull at a gate; swept me away to the couch and knelt at my side as I lay, while she overwhelmed me with passionate kisses. She divined that I was not in any condition to respond. “You still need your nurse,” she laughed merrily, with sparkling eyes. and flashing teeth and nostrils twitching with excitement. I saw on the tip of one delicious little curling hair a crystal glimmer that I knew. She had been out in the snowstorm ! _ My cunning twisted smile told her that I was wise to the game. “Yes,” she said excitedly, ‘‘I see how it’s done now. You pull yourself together with H. and then you start the buzz-wagon with C. Come along, put in the clutch.” , , Her hand was trembling with excitement. But on the back of it there shimmered a tiny heap of glistening snow. I sniffed it with suppressed ecstasy. I knew that it was only a matter of seconds before I caught the con- tagion of her crazy and sublime intoxication. Who was it that said you had only to put salt on the tail of a bird, and then you could catch it ? Probably that fellow thought that he knew all about it, but he got the whole thing wrong. What you have to do is to get snow up your own nose, and then you can catch the bird all right. What did Maeterlinck know about that silly old Blue Bird?