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.