became heated to the decomposing point, and
sent abroad a stench plain to the dullest nose
as the peculiar stench of decomposed organic
matter. It infected, he said, the produce of
many distillations afterwards." * "I tell you
what," said Nubis, "water may come down
into this town innocent enough, but it's no
easy matter for it to remain good among so
many causes of corruption. Heigho!" Then
he began to dream of Princess Cirrha and the
worthy Prince of Nimbus, until he was
aroused by a great tumult. It was an uproar
caused by drunken men. "Why are those
men so?" said Nubis to his friend. "I don't
know," said the Water-Drop, "but I saw many
people in that way last night, and I have seen
them so at Bethnal Green."  A woman pulled
her husband by, with loud reproaches for his
visits to the beer-shop.  "Why," cried the
man, with a great oath, "where would you
have me go for drink?" Then, with another
oath, he kicked the water-butt in passing—
"You would not have me to go there!" All
the bystanders laughed approvingly, and
Nubis bade adieu to his ambition for the hand
of Cirrha.

* Evidence of Mr. J. T. Cooper, Practical Chemist.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.
Nephelo goes into Polite Society, and then into a Dungeon.
—His Escape, Recapture, and his Perilous Ascent into
the Sky, surrounded by a Blaze of Fire.

NEPHELO was a light-hearted subject of
the Prince of Nimbus. It is he who often
floats, when the whole cloud is dark, as a
white vapour on the surface. For love of
Cirrha, he came down behind a team of rain-
drops and leapt into the cistern of a handsome
house at the west end of London.

Nephelo found the water in the cistern
greatly vexed at riotous behaviour on the
part of a large number of animalcules. He
was told that Water-Drops had been compelled
to come into that place, after undergoing
many hardships, and had unavoidably brought
with them germs of these annoying creatures.
Time and place favouring, nothing could
hinder them from coming into life; the
cistern was their cradle, although many of
them were already anything but babes.
Hereupon, Nephelo himself was dashed at by
an ugly little fellow like a dragon, but an
uglier fellow, who might be a small Saint
George, pounced at the dragon, and the heart
of the poor fairy was the scene of contest.

After a while, there was an arrival of fresh
water from a pipe, the flow of which stirred
up the anger of some decomposing growth
which lined the sides and bottom of the
cistern. So there was a good deal of
confusion caused, and it was some time before all
parties settled down into their proper places.

"The sun is very hot," said Nephelo. "We
all seem to be getting very warm." "Yes,
indeed," said a Lady-Drop; "it's not like the
cool Cloud-Country. I have been poisoned in
the Thames, half filtered, and made frowsy
by standing, this July weather, in an open
reservoir. I've travelled in pipes laid too
near the surface to be cool, and now am spoiling
here.  I know if water is not cold it can't
be pleasant." "Ah," said an old Drop, with a
small eel in one of his eyes; "I don't wonder
at hearing tell that men drink wine, and tea,
and beer." "Talking of beer," said another,
"is it a fact that we're of no use to the
brewers? Our character's so bad, they can't
rely on us for cooling the worts, and so sink
wells, in order to brew all the year round with water
cold enough to suit their purposes."
"I know nothing of beer," said Nephelo;
"but I know that is the gentlemen and ladies
in this cistern were as cold as they could wish
to be, there wouldn't be so much decomposition
going on amongst them." "Your turn
in, Sir," said a polite Drop, and Nephelo leapt
nimbly through the place of exit into a china
jug placed ready to receive him. He was
conveyed across a handsome kitchen by a
cook, who declared her opinion that the
morning's rain had caused the drains to smell
uncommonly. Nephelo then was thrown into
a kettle.

Boiling is to an unclean Water-Drop, like
scratching to a bear, a pleasant operation.
It gets rid of the little animals by which it
had been bitten, and throws down some of the
impurity with which it had been soiled. So,
after boiling, water becomes more pure, but
it is, at the same time, more greedy than ever
to absorb extraneous matter. Therefore, the
sons of men who boil their vitiated water
ought to keep it covered afterwards, and if
they wish to drink it cold, should lose no time
in doing so. Nephelo and his friends within
the kettle danced with delight under the boiling
process. Chattering pleasantly together,
they compared notes of their adventures upon
earth, discussed the politics of Cloud-Land, and
although it took them nearly twice as long to
boil as it would have done had there been no
carbonate of lime about them, they were quite
sorry when the time was come for them to
part. Nephelo then, with many others, was
poured out into an urn. So he was taken to
the drawing-room, a hot iron having, in a
friendly manner, been put down his back, to
keep him boiling.

Out of the urn into the teapot; out of the
teapot into the slop-basin; Nephelo had only
time to remark, a matron tea-maker, young
ladies knitting, and a good-looking young
gentleman upon his legs, laying the law down
with a tea-spoon, before he (the fairy, not the
gentleman) was smothered with a plate of
muffins. From so much of the conversation as
Nephelo could catch, filtered through muffin,
it appeared that they were talking about tea.

"It's all very well for you to say, mother,
that you 're confident you make tea very good,
but I ask—no, there I see you put six
spoonfuls in for five of us. Mother, if this
were not hard water—(here there was a noise
as of a spoon hammering upon the iron)—two