The water-butt was of the common sort, described thus by a member of the human race:— “Generally speaking, the wood becomes decomposed and covered with fungi; and indeed, I can best describe their condition by terming them filthy.” This water-butt was placed under the same shed with a neglected cesspool, from which the water—ever absorbing—had absorbed pollution. It contained a kitten among other trifles. “How many people have to drink out of this butt?” asked Nubis. “Really I cannot tell you,” said a neighbour Drop. “Once I was in a butt in Bethnal Green, twenty-one inches across, and a foot deep, which was to supply forty-eight families.[3] People store for themselves, and when they know how dirty these tubs are, they should not use them.” “But the labour of dragging water home, the impossibility of taking home abundance, the pollution of keeping it in dwelling-rooms and under beds.” “Oh, yes,” said the other Drop; “all very true. Besides, our water is not of a sort to keep. In this tub there is quite a microscopic vegetable garden, so I heard a doctor say who yesterday came hither with a party to inspect the district. One of them said he had a still used only for distilling water, and that one day, by chance, the bottoms of a series of distillations boiled to dryness. Thereupon, the dry mass 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.”[4] “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. Footnote 3: Report of Dr. Gavin. Footnote 4: 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.