"I wonder if you could let me have a little piece of your ice," I ventured.
"How much ice do you want?" he said promptly.
"Sixpennyworth," I said, feeling suddenly that Celia"s threepennyworth sounded rather 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 might 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 w.i.l.l.y 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.
w.i.l.l.y, 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 "G.o.d 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, after harking back no more than twice, and I sat down to my work again.
Generally speaking, "G.o.d Save the King" ends a show; it would be disloyal to play any other tune after that. Johnny quite saw this ... and so began to play "G.o.d Save the King" again.
I hope that His Majesty, the Lord Chamberlain, the late Dr. Bull, or whoever is most concerned, will sympathize with me when I say that this time I remained seated. I have my living to earn.
From that day Johnny has interpreted Dr. John Bull"s favourite composition nine times every morning. As this has been going on for three months, and as the line I mentioned has two special rehearsals to itself before coming out right, you can easily work out how many send-him-victoriouses Johnny and I have collaborated in. About two thousand.
Very well. Now, you ask yourself, why did I not send a polite note to Johnny"s father asking him to restrain his little boy from over-composition, begging him not to force the child"s musical genius too quickly, imploring him (in short) to lock up the piano and lose the key?
What kept me from this course? The answer is "Patriotism." Those deep feelings for his country which one man will express glibly by rising nine times during the morning at the sound of the National Anthem, another will direct to more solid uses. It was my duty, I felt, not to discourage Johnny. He was showing qualities which could not fail, when he grew up, to be of value to the nation. Loyalty, musical genius, determination, patience, industry--never before have these qualities been so finely united in a child of six. Was I to say a single word to disturb the delicate balance of such a boy"s mind? At six one is extraordinarily susceptible to outside influence. A word from his father to the effect that the gentleman above was getting sick of it, and Johnny"s whole life might be altered.
No, I would bear it grimly.
And then, yesterday, who should write to me but Johnny"s father himself.
This was the letter:
"Dear Sir--I do not wish to interfere unduly in the affairs of the other occupants of these flats, but I feel bound to call your attention to the fact that for many weeks now there has been a flow of water from your bathroom, which has penetrated through the ceiling of my bathroom, particularly after you have been using the room in the mornings. May I therefore beg you to be more careful in future not to splash or spill water on your floor, seeing that it causes inconvenience to the tenants beneath you?
"Yours faithfully, Jno. McAndrew."
You can understand how I felt about this. For months I had been suffering Johnny in silence; yet, at the first little drop of water from above, Johnny"s father must break out into violent abuse of me. A fine reward!
Well, Johnny"s future could look after itself now; anyhow, he was doomed with a selfish father like that.
"Dear Sir," I answered defiantly, "Now that we are writing to each other I wish to call your attention to the fact that for many months past there has been a constant flow of one-fingered music from your little boy, which penetrates through the floor of my library and makes all work impossible. May I beg you, therefore, to see that your child is taught a new tune immediately, seeing that the National Anthem has lost its first freshness for the tenants above him?"
His reply to this came to-day.
"Dear Sir,--I have no child.
"Yours faithfully, Jno. McAndrew."
I was so staggered that I could only think of one adequate retort.
"DEAR SIR," I wrote,--"I never have a bath."