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. When she had gone, the head of the house went upstairs and peered out into the street. The sun had set, and an unprecedented mystery of darkness was falling over London. The globes of the tall electric standards, catching a last reflection from the fading sky, glimmered faintly, but were not illuminated from within by any fierce glare of violet light. Darkness and silence enfolded the great dim organism that sprawled its vast being over the earth. The spirit of mystery caught Gosling in its spell. "All dark," he murmured, "and quiet! Lord! how still it is!" Even in his own house there was silence. Downstairs, three injured, resentful women were talking in whispers. Gosling, still sucking his cigar, stood entranced, peering into the darkness; he had ventured so far as to throw up the sash. "It's the stillness of death!" he muttered. Then he cocked his head on one side, for he caught the sound of distant shouting. Somewhere in the Kilburn Road another raid was in progress. "No light," murmured Gosling, "and no fire!" An immediate association suggested itself. "By gosh! and no water!" he added. For some seconds he contemplated with fearful awe the failure of the great essential of life. In the cistern room he was reassured by the sound of a delicious trickle from the ball-cock. "Still going," he said to himself; "but we'll 'ave to be careful. Surely they'll keep the water goin', though; whatever 'appens, they'd surely keep the water on?" 5