* * * * * A WARM HALF-HOUR. Whatever the papers say, it was the hottest afternoon of the year. At six-thirty I had just finished dressing after my third cold bath since lunch, when Celia tapped on the door. "I want you to do something for me," she said. "It's a shame to ask you on a day like this." "It _is_ rather a shame," I agreed, "but I can always refuse." "Oh, but you mustn't. We haven't got any ice, and the Thompsons are coming to dinner. Do you think you could go and buy three pennyworth? Jane's busy, and I'm busy, and----" "And I'm busy," I said, opening and shutting a drawer with great rapidity. "Just three pennyworth," she pleaded. "Nice cool ice. Think of sliding home on it." Well, of course it had to be done. I took my hat and staggered out. On an ordinary cool day it is about half-a-mile to the fishmonger; to-day it was about two miles-and-a-quarter. I arrived exhausted, and with only just strength enough to kneel down and press my forehead against the large block of ice in the middle of the shop, round which the lobsters nestled. "Here, you mustn't do that," said the fishmonger, waving me away. I got up, slightly refreshed. "I want," I said, "some----" and then a thought occurred to me. After all, _did_ fishmongers sell ice? Probably the large block in front of me was just a trade sign like the coloured bottles at the chemist's. Suppose I said to a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society, "I want some of that green stuff in the window," he would only laugh. The tactful thing to do would be to buy a pint or two of laudanum first, and _then_, having established pleasant relations, ask him as a friend to lend me his green bottle for a bit. So I said to the fishmonger, "I want some--some nice lobsters." "How many would you like?" "One," I said. We selected a nice one between us, and he wrapped a piece of _Daily Mail_ round it, leaving only the whiskers visible, and gave it to me. The ice being now broken--I mean the ice being now--well, you see what I mean--I was now in a position to ask for some of his ice. "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, not knowing a bit how much it would be, but feeling that Celia's threepennyworth sounded rather mean. "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.