Read Marihuana for Free Online Page B

likely to come back here — if he can remember to locate it. If he does, don't take any chances — he's dynamite!"
     
    "That's all right," the voice from behind the wing chair said dryly, "I used to be foreman of a blasting crew before I joined the outfit."
     
    The outside door opened and closed again. Darkness and silence.
     
    She was a rag doll now, a scarecrow in a stringy, silver dress, the beautiful thing that had alighted under the marquee downstairs so short a while before. But the will to live was left, continually seeking new outlets, groping, cajoling, tempting, keeping her on her feet when her flagging, beaten down spirit wanted to let her down in an inert heap at his feet.
     
    " — and they put mayonnaise on them, and they toast the bread if you want them to; I've often had one sent up late at night———"
     
    "Yes," he assented eagerly. "I haven't eaten since Tuesday night, before I went to that——— But how do I know you won't try to give me away?"
     
    "You'll hear me, you'll be right beside me — I'll just give the order — not a syllable more."
     
    "But when he comes up with it?"
     
    "I'll have him leave it on the floor outside the door."
     
    The hempseeds create a false, insatiable appetite, as well as distorting the time sense. He couldn't resist the picture she had so temptingly drawn for him. "All right, go ahead," he said truculently, and poised two fingers of his free hand directly over the transmission hook, ready to press down as on a telegraph key.
     
    "But not into my cheek like that," she pleaded subduedly. "I can't speak clearly, it distorts my mouth———" He withdrew the gun a little, just beyond contact point.
     
    She had it in her hand at last, at her ear; a skull that was still alive, sending down for sandwiches. She swallowed twice, to lubricate her strained throat. She was not going to try anything so foolhardy as to — that was not the plan. The will to live was too strong for that.
     
    "Coffee-shop, please." His breath was coming down her forehead from above in a hot stream.
     
    After a wait that seemed eternal, a voice answered.
     
    She said: "Send up two sandwiches, double-decked and toasted———" Something wet fell on her forehead. "And coffee in a container, to 815." And she added, with quiet urgency, "-Just like the other night-. I can't seem to sleep."
     
    The voice at the other end said, with sudden understanding: "Oh, you mean you want some of that sleeping-stuff I got from the drugstore for you to put into it again, Miss Philips?"
     
    "A lot," she answered. "A lot———" And then as the connection broke, " — of mayonnaise." She replaced the transmitter as though its weight had broken her arm.
     
    "What was that, just like the other night?" he demanded suspiciously.
     
    "Not too sweet, I don't like the coffee too sweet."
     
    "How do I know who you were really talking to just then?"
     
    "But you heard me."
     
    "How long will it take to get up here?"
     
    "Oh, about five minutes," she said incautiously.
     
    "Yeah? Well, we'll see. If no sandwiches have come in five minutes, I'll know you put something over on me, gave me away———"
     
    This time her face turned ashen; more stricken than it had yet been since they'd come into the room. "No! Don't — you can't do that? That stuff has damaged your time conception — you think Tuesday night was a long time ago, and it's still only Tuesday night! You won't be able to tell———!"
     
    He gave her a grim smile. "You seem frightened, Eleanor. If you just phoned down for sandwiches, why are you looking so white?"
     
    "Let me call back, tell them to hurry it———"
     
    He moved toward her with catlike agility. "You're not touching that thing again tonight! I was a fool to let you do it the first time!" He gave a foreshortened tug of rabid violence, and the phone cord dangled loose in his hands.
     
    She ran a distracted hand through her hair. "Then in fairness to me, look at the