4
A few minutes after Millie’s return, Mrs Gosling, red-eyed and timidly vicious, interrupted her husband’s perfect enjoyment of the long-desired cigar by the announcement: “The gas is off!”
Gosling got up, struck a match, and held it to the sitting-room burner. The match burned steadily. There was no pressure even of air in the pipes.
“Turned off at the meter!” snapped Gosling. “’Ere, lemme go an’ see!” He spoke with the air of the superior male, strong in his comprehension of the mechanical artifices which so perplex the feminine mind. Mrs Gosling sniffed, and stood aside to let him pass. She had already examined the meter.
“Well, we got lamps!” snarled Gosling when he returned. He had always preferred a lamp to read by in the evening.
“No oil,” returned Mrs Gosling, gloomily. She’d teach him to shake her!
Gosling meditated. His parochial mind was full of indignation. Vague thoughts of “getting some one into trouble for this”—even of that last, desperate act of coercion, writing to the papers about it—flitted through his mind. Plainly something must be done. “’Aven’t you got any candles?” he asked.
“One or two. They won’t last long,” replied his studiously patient partner.
“Well, we’ll ’ave to use them to-night and go to bed early,” was Gosling’s final judgment. His wife left the room with a shrug of forbearing contempt.