Diary of a Drug Fiend

The Ghiter on the Snow gI it was necessary for me to sign certain papers which Mr. Wolfe had drawn up at once, on receipt of my wire, and it would be better to have it done at the consulate. “Why, of course, get a taxi,” I said; “ I'll be down in a minute.” He went downstairs. I ran in to Lou and told her that I had to go to the consul on business: I’d be back in an hour and we could do our shopping. We took a big sniff of snow and kissed good-bye as if I were starting on a three years’ expedition to the South Pole. Then I caught up my hat, gloves, and cane, and found my young man at the door. The drink and the air of Paris had given him a sense of his own dignity. Instead of waiting humbly for me to get into the car, he was sitting there already; and though his greeting was still solemnly deferential, there was a little more of the ambassador about it. He had repressed the original impulse to touch his hat. I myself felt a curious sense of enjoyment of my own importance. At the same time, I was in a violent hurry to get back to Lou. My brain was racing with the thought of her. I signed my name where they told me, and the consul dabbed it all over with stamps, and we drove back to the hotel, where the clerk extracted a locked leather wallet from a mysterious inside hip pocket and counted me out my six thousand in hundred- pound notes. Of course, I had to ask the fellow to lunch, it was only decent, but I was very glad when he excused himself. He had to catch the two o'clock train back to town. “Good God, what a time you've been,” said Lou, and I could see that she had been filling it in in a wonderful way. It was up to her neck. She danced about like a crazy woman with little jerky movements which I couldn’t help seeing signified nervous irritability. However, she was radiant, beaming, glowing, bursting with excitement.