younger than I am. No one, I am perfectly certain, would from my appearance suspect me of being a hachish eater, or of using any more potent narcotic than tobacco-smoke, which, by the way, I do use every day and all day; and, in fine, I have yet to learn that a moderate and discreet employment of my favourite dream-compeller is, to even the slightest degree, injurious to a person of ordinarily good constitution. Why, therefore, should I not continue, in leisure hours, to voyage away from my body into the misty land whither most people only penetrate after they have over-eaten themselves?
"But it will eventually weaken your brain," says that benevolent old gentle-man, Dr. Omnibus.
Dr. Omnibus, with all my respects, is a fool.
It is he who says: "Don't drink beer—it is adulterated. Don't drink spirits—they destroy the coats of the stomach. Don't drink tea or coffee—it ruins the digestion and deadens the nerves. And, above all, don't drink water—it is poisonous."
