ather paltry.

"Six of ice, Bill," he shouted to an inferior at the back, and Bill
tottered up with a block about the size of one of the lions in Trafalgar
Square. He wrapped a piece of "Daily News" round it and gave it to me.

"Is that all?" asked the fishmonger.

"That is all," I said faintly; and, with Algernon, the overwhiskered
crustacean, firmly clutched in the right hand and Stonehenge supported on
the palm of the left hand, I retired.

The flat seemed a very long way away, but having bought twice as much ice
as I wanted, and an entirely unnecessary lobster, I was not going to
waste still more money in taxis. Hot though it was, I would walk.

For some miles all went well. Then the ice began to drip through the
paper, and in a little while, the underneath part of "The Daily News"
had disappeared altogether. Tucking the lobster under my arm I turned the
block over, so that it rested on another part of the paper. Soon that had
dissolved too. By the time I had got half-way our Radical contemporary
had been entirely eaten.

Fortunately "The Daily Mail" remained. But to get it I had to disentangle
Algernon first, and I had no hand available. There was only one thing
to do. I put the block of ice down on the pavement, unwrapped the
lobster, put the lobster next to the ice, spread its "Daily Mail" out,
lifted the ice on to the paper, and--looked up and saw Mrs. Thompson
approaching.

She was the last person I wanted at that moment. In an hour and a half
she would be dining with us. Algernon would not be dining with us. If
Algernon and Mrs. Thompson were to meet now, would she not be expecting
him to turn up at every course? Think of the long drawn-out
disappointment for her; not even lobster sauce!

There was no time to lose. I decided to abandon the ice. Leaving it on
the pavement I clutched the lobster and walked hastily back the way I had
come.

By the time I had shaken off Mrs. Thompson I was almost at the
fishmonger's. That decided me. I would begin all over again, and would
do it properly this time. "I want three of ice," I said with an air.

"Three of ice, Bill," said the fishmonger, and Bill gave me quite a
respectable segment in "The Morning Post."

"And I want a taxi," I said, and I waved my lobster at one.

We drove quickly home.

But as we neared the flat I suddenly became nervous about Algernon. I
could not take him, red and undraped, past the hall-porter, past all the
other residents who mig