absence from school with the same illness that killed his father. Her father-in-law lay abed in the house with palsy. She herself had been unable to move one side of her body since she was five, when she had infantile paralysis. Hobbling here and there in the shop on her crutches she selected various medicines from the different shelves, and explained what they were. This is a medicine to build your blood. This is a serum for vitamin injections. Here is the hypodermic needle. These are calcium pills. This is diastase to keep you from getting an upset stomach. Her voice was full of tenderness as she explained each of the half- dozen medicines. The affection of this unhappy woman was however to prove too intense. At the last she said, "This is a medicine to be used when you need a drink so badly you can't stand it." She quickly wrapped the little box. It was morphine. She said that it was no more harmful than liquor, and I believed her. For one thing, I was just at the stage where I had come to feel the squalor of drunkenness, and I was overjoyed to be able to escape after such long bondage to the devil called alcohol. Without a flicker of hesitation I injected the morphine into my arm. My insecurity, fretfulness and timidity were swept away completely; I turned into an expansively optimistic and fluent talker. The injections made me forget how weak my body was, and I applied myself energetically to my cartoons. Sometimes I would burst out laughing even while I was drawing. I had intended to take one shot a day, but it became two, then three; when it reached four I could no longer work unless I had my shots. All I needed was the woman at the pharmacy to admonish me, saying
