Laughing Torso

LAUGHING TORSO

refused to introduce him to her as she had been very
kind to me and I knew how fond Growley was of
pulling the legs of people whom he suspected of
being rich and influential It was a curious kink that
he had which had lost him many opportunities and
people that would have been useful and friendly
to him. It was a kind of schoolboy perversity. A
friend of mine introduced him to her and she asked
him to her house to lunch to meet some distin-
guished and rich women who were longing to have
their horoscopes read. I was not at the luncheon
party, but Crowley, I heard, had a great success and
told them all kinds of things about themselves that
they were dying to hear. He looked at the Countess
and said, " I have met you in another life," She
was naturally very intrigued and asked him when
and where, and he said that, in fact, he had written a
story about her that hacWaeen published and that he
would send her a copy. This he eventually did and
to her horror when she read it, it was a perfectly
monstrous story, about a perfectly monstrous and
disreputable old woman bearing, of course, no re-
semblance to her. She was naturally furious and
refused to see him again. One evening, before the
unfortunate incident took place, a man whom we all
knew, asked us to come to his flat and try a little
hashish. I had never tried any, but only a few days
before, the Irish journalist whom I knew, had told
me about his experiences when he had tried some.
It is not a habit-forming drug and does not do any-
one much harm. The Irishman went to see some
friends one day and they gave him some. I believe
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