ed 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 moment of your awakening. Conceive
that an appointment with the dentist implies heavenly joy instead of
infernal pain, and you will have a notion of the daily state of Mrs
Blackshaw and Emmie (the nurse) with regard to the baby's bath.

Even at ten in the morning Emmie would be keeping an eye on the kitchen
fire, lest the cook might let it out. And shortly after noon Mrs
Blackshaw would be keeping an eye on the thermometer in the bedroom
where the bath occurred. From four o'clock onwards the clocks in the
house were spied on and overlooked like suspected persons; but they
were used to that, because the baby had his sterilized milk every two
hours. I have at length allowed you to penetrate the secret of his sex.

A