The Grim Smile of the Five Towns | Page 7

by turns. She narrowly missed
being stout, and she was continuously gay, like Sidney. The child was
also gay. Everybody was glad to see Horace, but nobody seemed
deeply interested in Horace's affairs. As a fact he had done rather well
in Germany, and had now come back to England in order to assume a
working partnership in a small potting concern at Hanbridge. He was
virtually beginning life afresh. But what concerned Sidney and Ella
was themselves and their offspring. They talked incessantly about the
infinitesimal details of their daily existence, and the alterations which
they had made, or meant to make, in the house and garden. And
occasionally Sidney thrummed a tune on the banjo to amuse the infant.
Horace had expected them to be curious about Germany and his life in
Germany. But not a bit! He might have come in from the next street
and left them only yesterday, for all the curiosity they exhibited.
'Shall we go down to the drawing-room and have tea, eh?' said Ella.
'Yes, let's go and kill the fatted calf,' said Sidney.
And strangely enough, inexplicably enough, Horace did feel like a
prodigal.

Sidney went off with his precious banjo, and Ella picked up sundry
belongings without which she never travelled about the house.
'You carry me down-stairs, unky?' the little nephew suggested, with an
appealing glance at his new uncle. 'No,' said Horace, 'I'm dashed if I
do!'

BABY'S BATH
I
Mrs Blackshaw had a baby. It would be an exaggeration to say that the
baby interested the entire town, Bursley being an ancient, blase sort of
borough of some thirty thousand inhabitants. Babies, in fact, arrived in
Bursley at the rate of more than a thousand every year. Nevertheless, a
few weeks after the advent of Mrs Blackshaw's baby, when the medical
officer of health reported to the Town Council that the births for the
month amounted to ninety- five, and that the birth-rate of Bursley
compared favourably with the birth-rates of the sister towns, Hanbridge,
Knype, Longshaw, and Turnhill--when the medical officer read these
memorable words at the monthly meeting of the Council, and the
Staffordshire Signal reported them, and Mrs Blackshaw perused them,
a blush of pride spread over Mrs Blackshaw's face, and she picked up
the baby's left foot and gave it a little peck of a kiss. She could not help
feeling that the real solid foundation of that formidable and magnificent
output of babies was her baby. She could not help feeling that she had
done something for the town--had caught the public eye.
As for the baby, except that it was decidedly superior to the average
infant in external appearance and pleasantness of disposition, it was, in
all essential characteristics, a typical baby--that is to say, it was purely
sensuous and it lived the life of the senses. It was utterly selfish. It
never thought of anyone but itself. It honestly imagined itself to be the
centre of the created universe. It was convinced that the rest of the
universe had been brought into existence solely for the convenience
and pleasure of it--the baby. When it wanted anything it made no secret
of the fact, and it was always utterly unscrupulous in trying to get what
it wanted. If it could have obtained the moon it would have upset all the
astronomers of Europe and made Whitaker's Almanack unsalable
without a pang. It had no god but its stomach. It never bothered its head
about higher things. It was a bully and a coward, and it treated women

as beings of a lower order than men. In a word, it was that ideal
creature, sung of the poets, from which we gradually sink and fall away
as we grow older.
At the age of six months it had quite a lot of hair, and a charming rosy
expanse at the back of its neck, caused through lying on its back in
contemplation of its own importance. It didn't know the date of the
Battle of Hastings, but it knew with the certainty of absolute knowledge
that it was master of the house, and that the activity of the house
revolved round it.
Now, the baby loved its bath. In any case its bath would have been an
affair of immense and intricate pomp; but the fact that it loved its bath
raised the interest and significance of the bath to the nth power. The
bath took place at five o'clock in the evening, and it is not too much to
say that the idea of the bath was immanent in the very atmosphere of
the house. When you have an appointment with the dentist at five
o'clock in the afternoon the idea of the appointment is immanent in
your mind from the first