The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-06-20

all my clients names. So there'l be no more cocaine. Still, I haven't done so badly"
 No Moro Risks.
 But the shop, the piano shop?" stammered, when I had recovered 0 little from my astonishment. What about that And there's still a large stock upstairs
 Add Confessions OF ,wco (Ldr
 'I take no more risks" he said. T shall destroy all the cocaine. Give me the keys.''
 But me-me-whats to become of me?"
 l hardly knew what I was say ing.
 "Oh, you'n get along all right, suppose. There's something for you"
 And as I handed over the keys of the shop to him he laid a fve-pound note on the table.
 "But I--this is of no use to me-" I said, as I flung the note rough ly away from me. "Oh, I-I-shall starve"
 I began to cry. The end had come at last, and over it all was the awful. stif1ing fear-I could get no more cocaine. I had none with me N4LGil iltL e "iS D4cIlLy O1 IL lOChSu up in the piano shop, but Lit had the scenes here"
 The old fear of him stole over me again, and I found myself outside [ the chemists shop, a frightened, shaken wreck.
 I could fill pages with a descrip- tion of my sufferings then, so vividly can I still remember them. I, a CO., caine maniac, was deprived of my drug. Hunger. thirst, the death of a loved one, the failure of ambition, gnawing sorrow, were nothing to the bangs I felt, the pangs of depriva- tion. I could have cried aloud in my anguish. I know people looked at me as I walked, or rather tum- bled, along the streets, muttering to myself. My hair escaped from be- heath my hat. Once, in a shop window, I caught sight of white, wild face. N I found myself trying to run as if demons were after me. In deed, I'm sure a crowd did follow me.
 At length I found myself in a wide, open, green space-Hyde Park-run- ming round and round and round in a circle, shouting incoherently slob- bering at the mouth until I fell, ex- hausted, a twitching, moaning, writh- ing, senseless heap.
 Three hours without cocaine! That was all. That's what I had be- come.
 But they told me in the hospital. to which they carried me. that those three hours and the treatment I had received cured me of the craving. I was freed from it's awful bonds
 But when I got up for the first time I was an old, old woman at the age of 2S, as I have described in the opening of my chapter. And when I left that hospital I ha q just two and tenpence in my pocket and the clothes I stood up in Ev- erything I had left at the piano shop.
 Slowly, weakly, I went to look at 1t. I was empty and to let Lit was my only chance, so to his chem ist's shop I went, but another name was over the door. I didn't know what to do? I had but those few coins and no home at al1 Oh, what was I to do? Then quite by chance, or perhaps it was an inspiration, I found myself outside the offices of the kind banker who had attended to my affairs when I had had money, and. like helpless child almost; I walked in to seek ad- vice.
 He wouldn't, he couldn't believe me at first when I told him who I was, but at length I persuaded him after telling him a little of my past history.
 I'm sorry, I'm very sorry" he said. But you still won't starve, for you've your s1O,0o0 a year left to you, you know, haven't you? Of courset , Of coursei I had not forgotten all about that. It used to be paid to me quarterly in New York. But I had assigned it to a money-1ender for two years. So with a two pound note and an introduction I left the bank building to an address where I signed the terms to write ''he Confessions of a Cocaine Fiend'' for a stipulated sum that will prevent starvation and buy an humble dress that will cover my weak body for a few months. I walked out of that quiet office to start a new life, the life of a broken and sorrowing woman who had been through hell itself ana come out scathed with life, and that is about all.
 And there is my story, the confes- sion of cocaine fiend. And those, the others who were the same as was. what became of them |? An, this is only the story of my tragedy, not of theirs. (The End.)