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 scratched some characters on paper, to be sure, but I found them wholly undecipherable the next day. They were not in English or in any language known to me. Finally, I ran out of the house and, encountering, on Second Avenue, a fancy woman of the Jewish persuasion, I accompanied her to her cubicle, and permitted her to be the subsidiary hierophant in the mystic rites I then performed. That, concluded Peter, with a somewhat sorry smile, was the last of my experiments with drugs.

This story and, indeed, this whole phase, amused me enormously. An ambition which had persuaded its possessor that in order to become the American Arthur Machen, he must first become an adept in demonology seemed to me to be the culmination of Peter's fantastic life, which, indeed, it was. But I said little. As usual, I let him talk and I listened. There seemed, however, to be a period here and I took occasion to look over the books, asking him first if he had any objection to my copying off some of the titles, as I felt that it might be possible that some day I should want to make some research in this esoteric realm. He bade me do what I liked and, advancing towards the book-shelves with the small note-book which I carried with me at that period in order to set down fleeting thoughts as they came, I transferred some of the titles therein.

I stopped at last, not from lack of patience on my part, but from observing the impatience of Peter,