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He arrived at his commodious and electrically lit residence in the
very nick of time, and full to overflowing with innocent paternal
glee. Was he not about to see Roger's tub? Roger was just ready to
be carried upstairs as Mr Blackshaw's latchkey turned in the door.
'Wait a sec!' cried Mr Blackshaw to his wife, who had the child in
her arms, 'I'll carry him up.'
And he threw away his hat, stick, and overcoat and grabbed
ecstatically at the infant. And he had got perhaps halfway up the
stairs, when lo! the electric light went out. Every electric light
in the house went out.
'Great Scott!' breathed Mr Blackshaw, aghast.
He pulled aside the blind of the window at the turn of the stairs,
and peered forth. The street was as black as your hat, or nearly
so.
'Great Scott!' he repeated. 'May, get candles.'
Something had evidently gone wrong at the Works. Just his luck! He
had quitted the Works for a quarter of an hour, and the current
had failed!
Of course, the entire house was instantly in an uproar, turned
upside down, startled out of its life. But a few candles soon
calmed its transports. And at length Mr Blackshaw gained the
bedroom in safety, with the offspring of his desires comfortable
in a shawl.
'Give him to me,' said May shortly. 'I suppose you'll have to go
back to the Works at once?'
Mr Blackshaw paused, and then nerved himself; but while he was
pausing, May, glancing at the two feeble candles, remarked: 'It's
very tiresome. I'm sure I shan't be able to see properly.'
'No!' almost shouted Mr Blackshaw. 'I'll watch this kid have his
bath or I'll die for it! I don't care if all the Five Towns are in
darkness. I don't care if the Mayor's aunt has got caught in a
dynamo and is suffering horrible tortures. I've come to see this
bath business, and dashed if I don't see it!'
'Well, don't stand between the bath and the fire, dearest,' said
May coldly.
Meanwhile, Emmie, having pretty nearly filled the bath with a
combination of hot and cold waters, dropped the floating
thermometer into it, and then added more waters until the
thermometer indicated the precise temperature proper for a baby's
bath. But you are not to imagine that Mrs Blackshaw trusted a
thermometer--
She did not, however, thrust her bared arm into the water this
time. No! Roger, who never cried before his bath, was crying, was
indubitably crying. And he cried louder and louder.
'Stand where he can't see you, dearest. He isn't used to you at
bath-time,' said Mrs Blackshaw still coldly. 'Are you, my pet?
There! There!'
Mr Blackshaw effaced himself, feeling a fool. But Roger continued
to cry. He cried himself purple. He cried till the veins stood out
on his forehead and his mouth was like a map of Australia. He
cried himself into a monster of ugliness. Neither mother nor nurse
could do anything with him at all.
'I think you've upset him, dearest,' said Mrs Blackshaw even more
coldly. 'Hadn't you better go?'
'Well--' protested the father.
'I think you had better go,' said Mrs Blackshaw, adding no term of
endearment, and visibly controlling herself with difficulty.
And Mr Blackshaw went. He had to go. He went out into the
unelectric night. He headed for the Works, not because he cared
twopence, at that moment, about the accident at the Works,
whatever it was; but simply because the Works was the only place
to go to. And even outside in the dark street he could hear the
rousing accents of his progeny.
People were talking to each other as they groped about in the
road, and either making jokes at the expense of the new
Electricity Department, or frankly cursing it with true Five Towns
directness of speech. And as Mr Blackshaw went down the hill into
the town his heart was as black as the street itself with rage and
disappointment. He had made his child cry!
Someone stopped him.
'Eh, Mester Blackshaw!' said a voice, and under the voice a hand
struck a match to light a pipe. 'What's th' maning o' this eclipse
as you'm treating us to?'
Mr Blackshaw looked right through the inquirer--a way he had when
his brain was working hard. And he suddenly smiled by the light of
the match.
'That child wasn't crying because I was there,' said Mr Blackshaw
with solemn relief. 'Not at all! He was crying because he didn't
understand the candles. He isn't used to candles, and they
frightened him.'
And he began to hurry towards the Works.
At the same instant the electric light returned to Bursley. The
current was resumed.
'That's better,' said Mr Blackshaw, sighing.
Read next: PART III - THE SILENT BROTHERS: CHAPTER I
Read previous: PART II - BABY'S BATH: CHAPTER II
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