“Give us a deck, Coke,” said one, in a harsh voice.
He nodded. A silver quarter gleamed momentarily from hand to hand, and he passed to one girl stealthily a small white-paper packet. Others came to him, both men and women. It seemed to be an established thing.
“Who is that?” asked Kennedy, in a low tone, of the pickpocket back of us.
“Coke Brodie,” was the laconic reply.
“A cocaine fiend?”
“Yes, and a lobbygow for the grapevine system of selling the dope under this new law.”
“Where does he get the supply to sell?” asked Kennedy, casually.
The pickpocket shrugged his shoulders.
“No one knows, I suppose,” Kennedy commented to me. “But he gets it in spite of the added restrictions and peddles it in little packets, adulterated, and at a fabulous price for such cheap stuff. The habit is spreading like wildfire. It is a fertile means of recruiting the inmates in the vice-trust hotels. A veritable epidemic it is, too. Cocaine is one of the most harmful of all habit-forming drugs. It used to be a habit of the underworld, but now it is creeping up, and gradually and surely reaching the higher strata of society. One thing that causes its spread is the ease with which it can be taken. It requires no smoking-dens, no syringe, no paraphernalia—only the drug itself.”
Another singer had taken the place of the dancers. Kennedy leaned over and whispered to the dip.