I had been dallying with the opium pipe almost daily for a year, yet I had no trouble when I gave it up⁠—just a few restless days and nights and I forgot it. I gave this no thought then, but later when I saw an opium smoker doubled up with cramps and pleading for hop, and learned he had been on the pipe only three months, I got interested and began thinking it over and observing.

My observations and experience have convinced me that the drug habit, like most of our other habits, is largely mental. In another chapter I shall submit a few facts in support of this opinion.

Kansas City had nothing of interest for me now, and I left it, never to return. A cheap excursion ticket took me back west to the town of Los Angeles, where I finished the winter, fraternizing with the bums and yeggs from the road, polishing up old acquaintances, and gathering gossip from the four quarters of the underworld.