nd so at five o'clock precisely the august and exciting ceremony began
in the best bedroom. A bright fire was burning (the month being
December), and the carefully-shaded electric lights were also burning.
A large bath-towel was spread in a convenient place on the floor, and
on the towel were two chairs facing each other, and a table. On one
chair was the bath, and on the other was Mrs Blackshaw with her sleeves
rolled up, and on Mrs Blackshaw was another towel, and on that towel
was Roger (the baby). On the table were zinc ointment, vaseline,
scentless eau de Cologne, Castile soap, and a powder-puff.

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 mere thermometer. No. She put her arm in the
water up to the elbow. She reckoned the sensitive skin near the elbow
was worth forty thermometers.

Emmie was chiefly an audience. Mrs Blackshaw had engaged her as a
nurse, but she could have taught a nigger-boy to do all that she
allowed the nurse to do. During the bath Mrs Blackshaw and Emmie hated
and scorned each other, despite their joy. Emmie was twice Mrs
Blackshaw's age, besides being twice her weight, and she knew twice as
much about babies as Mrs Blackshaw did. However, Mrs Blackshaw had the
terrific advantage of being the mother of that particular infant, and
she could always end an argument when she chose, and in her own favour.
It was unjust, and Emmie felt it to be unjust; but this is not a world
of justice.

Roger, though not at all precocious, was perfectly aware of the
carefully-concealed hostility between his mother and his nurse, and
often, with his usual unscrupulousness, he used it for his own ends. He
was sitting upon his mother's knees toying with the edge of the bath,
already tasting its delights in advance. Mrs Blackshaw undressed the
upper half of him, and then she laid him on the flat of his back and
undressed the lower half of him, but keeping some wisp of a garment
round his equatorial regions. And then she washed his face with a
sponge and the Castile soap, very gently, but not half gently enough
for Emmie, nor half gently enough for Roger, for Roger looked upon this
part of the business as insulting and superfluous. He breathed hard and
kicked his feet nea