ht spring out at me on the stairs. Accordingly, I
placed the block of ice on the seat, took off some of its "Morning Post,"
and wrapped Algernon up decently. Then I sprang out, gave the man a coin,
and hastened into the building.

* * * * *

"Bless you," said Celia, "have you got it? How sweet of you!" And she
took my parcel from me. "Now we shall be able--Why, what's this?"

I looked at it closely.

"It's--it's a lobster," I said. "Didn't you say lobster?"

"I said ice."

"Oh," I said, "oh, I didn't understand. I thought you said lobster."

"You can't put lobster in cider cup," said Celia severely.

Of course I quite see that. It was foolish of me. However, it's pleasant
to think that the taxi must have been nice and cool for the next man.

"WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED"

You've heard of Willy Ferrero, the Boy Conductor? A musical prodigy,
seven years old, who will order the fifth oboe out of the Albert Hall as
soon as look at him. Well, he has a rival.

Willy, as perhaps you know, does not play any instrument himself; he only
conducts. His rival (Johnny, as I think of him) does not conduct as
yet; at least, not audibly. His line is the actual manipulation of the
pianoforte--the Paderewski touch. Johnny lives in the flat below, and I
hear him touching.

On certain mornings in the week--no need to specify them--I enter my
library and give myself up to literary composition. On the same
mornings little Johnny enters his music-room (underneath) and gives
himself up to musical composition. Thus we are at work together.

The worst of literary composition is this: that when you have got hold of
what you feel is a really powerful idea, you find suddenly that you have
been forestalled by some earlier writer--Sophocles or Shakespeare or
George R. Sims. Then you have to think again. This frequently happens
to me upstairs; and downstairs poor Johnny will find to his horror one
day that his great work has already been given to the world by another--a
certain Dr. John Bull.

Johnny, in fact, is discovering "God Save the King" with one finger.

As I dip my pen in the ink and begin to write, Johnny strikes up. On the
first day when this happened, some three months ago, I rose from
my chair and stood stiffly through the performance--an affair of some
minutes, owing to a little difficulty with "Send him victorious," a line
which always bothers Johnny. However, he got right through it at last,