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 vapor on the surface. For love of Cirrha, he came down behind a team of rain-drops and leaped into the cistern of a handsome house at the west end of London.
Nephelo found the water in the cistern greatly vexed at riotous behavior 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 favoring, 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 little 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 awhile 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 frowzy 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 if 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 among them.” “Your turn in, sir,” said a polite Drop, and Nephelo leaped 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 tea-pot; out of the tea-pot 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 spoonfuls less would make tea of a better flavor and of equal strength. Now, there are three hundred and sixty-five times and a quarter tea-times in the year ——”
“And how many spoonfuls, brother, to the quarter of a tea-time?”
“Maria, you’ve no head for figures. I say nothing of the tea consumed at breakfast. Multiply——”