considerable tea-drinker, and I thank you for
the high and unlooked-for favour of this your
invitation; but, pardon me, most venerable of
River-deities, if I add, that, having already
inhaled a good 'taste of your quality,' a
certain little scruple interferes with my availing
myself of further favours."

"Speak it aloud to the Metropolis!" said
Father Thames.

"Do not think me ungrateful," said I,
"nor by any means insensible of the honour
you do me; but the truth is, that, although
I drink more tea than most men, probably
than any other gentleman in London, I am
rather scrupulous as to the water I make it
with."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the River- god; "then
come with me, and I will show you the
magnificent broad stream from which my urn is
constantly filled."

A great torch flashed before my eyes!—
then another!—then three or four!—then a
dozen were dancing round me, and waving
me onward, and along with them—now this
way, now that, now up, now descending
slippery steps—till I found myself seated in
a huge dark barge, with Father Thames; and
floating slowly down the stream by torch-
light.

"How black and solid stands the forest of
shipping on each side!—how large and black
lie their shadows on the water!—how the
lights glance from the windows on the shore!
—how fast the current runs! Commerce—
commerce!—but, what is that floating by?—
pah! it's a dead dog, or something—'a sort
of not-of-the-newest poor-john!' How very
thick the water is hereabouts, Father Thames;
and, pray, may I inquire what that black,
sluggish stream may be which I see pouring
into you from a wide, bricked archway,
yonder?"

"Oh, that's one of my sewers," replied the
Father of Rivers, without turning his head,
"my Blackfriars sewer-outlet; and a fine,
generous, open fellow, he is."

"So he seems," said I; "have you any more
of them?"

"Oh, yes: one generally near every bridge,
with here and there another, and another,
just as the quantity of sewage in a
neighbourhood has determined. They all come
to me. I have, in fact, a hundred and forty-
one sewers between Battersea and London
Bridge. All come to me, sir."

"That's very kind of them. But what
are those smaller mouths that send forth
strange party-coloured currents, to mingle
with your waters?"

"That one belongs to a soap-boiler—a
particular friend of mine; the next to it, is
from a slaughter-house, kept by a very
estimable friend indeed, who wouldn't allow a
particle of the refuse and drainage of his
yards to run anywhere else, on any account.
From Brentford down to Blackwall, everybody
presents his compliments to me. Those
other agreeable little outlets you are looking
at, or will shortly see, on both sides of my
banks, are from gas-factories, brewhouses,
shot-factories, coal-wharfs, cow-houses, tan-
pits, gut-spinners, fish-markets, and other
cheerful and odoriferous tributaries; while
the inky flood yonder which your eyes are
now fixed upon, is from a very populous
grave-yard, which produces so large a quantity
of liquid every four-and-twenty hours, that it
has to be drained off by regular arrangement,
and made to flow into my convenient, all-
embracing bosom. Some people affect to turn
up their noses at this; but the City Corporations
are more wise than nice, and they know better."

I was silent for some time, as well I might
be, after such a dose of "information for the
people;" and during this pause in the
conversation, I had unconsciously dangled one
arm over the side of the barge, till presently
my hand, by a swell of the current, was
immersed above the wrist. I drew it up, and
found it covered—coated, I may say—with a
thick, dingy, slimy liquid of an offensive odour.
Gazing on the water around, as we proceeded,
I saw that we were surrounded by whole
acres of it. I looked at the imperturbable
countenance of Father Thames.

"What in the world is all this?" said I.

"The mess we are passing through?"
responded the giant coolly;—"oh, it's only a
little scum derived from barges, and lime-
works, and colliers, and the shipping around
us, and bone-grinders, and tar-works, and
dredging-rnachiues, and steamers, and back-
gardens, and floating remains of creatures
from knackers' yards, and rotting vegetables,
and what not."

"And what not, indeed, Father Thames!"
cried I, starting up, quite unable to endure it
any longer; "is this the water you make your
tea with?"

"And do all my cooking with," continued
Old Thames, taking no sort of notice of my
dismay and excitement; "and all my washing.
I have done so, you must know very
well, for years and years—my water being in
just the same state as you now see it. Don't
all our ships, bound to foreign ports, fill their
tanks with it? and don't they find it keep
good a wonderful length of time? It has, to
be sure, to putrify once, during which time
sailors who are thirsty on a hot day in the
tropics, have to go into a dark corner to drink
it, straining it through their teeth as it goes
down; but after all the queer stuff has sunk
to the bottom of the tanks, and settled for
good, everybody says there's no water like it.
So now—about barge—we'll return home to
Somerset House to tea!"

"Father Thames," said I, firmly, though
with every respect; "Father Thames, if I
drink a single cup of your tea, then—to quote
the words of the immortal Falstaff, who knew
a trick worth two of it—'fillip me with a
three-man beetle.'"