He put the lobster carefully at his elbow and called for drinks.

But Dicky was busy with a new trick with a box of matches, and Dad, who was a recognized expert in the idle devices of bar-room loafers--picking up glasses and bottles with a finger and thumb, opening a footrule with successive jerks from the wrist, drinking beer out of a spoon--forgot the lapse of time with the new toy.
Punctually on the stroke of eleven the swinging doors of the Angel were closed and the huge street lamps were extinguished.

Dad's eye was glassy, but he remembered the lobster.
"Whersh my lil' present ?" he wailed.

"Mush 'ave lil' present for the Duchess, y'know.

'Ow could I g'ome, d'ye think ?" He made so much noise that the landlord came to see what was the matter, and then the barman pointed to where he had left the lobster on the counter.