Ah—­you have been overhearing a good deal about companies of late, I see.  But this I will tell you; that when you grow up, and have a vote and influence, it will be your duty, if you intend to be a good citizen, not only not to put the water-supply of England into the hands of fresh companies, but to help to take out of their hands what water-supply they manage already, especially in London; and likewise the gas-supply; and the railroads; and everything else, in a word, which everybody uses, and must use.  For you must understand—­at least as soon as you can—­that though the men who make up companies are no worse than other men, and some of them, as you ought to know, very good men; yet what they have to look to is their profits; and the less water they supply, and the worse it is, the more profit they make.  For most water, I am sorry to say, is fouled before the water companies can get to it, as this water which runs past us will be, and as the Thames water above London is.  Therefore it has to be cleansed, or partly cleansed, at a very great expense.  So water companies have to be inspected—­in plain English, watched—­at a very heavy expense to the nation, by government officers; and compelled to do their best, and take their utmost care.  And so it has come to pass that the London water is not now nearly as bad as some of it was thirty years ago, when it was no more fit to drink than that in the cattle yard tank.  But still we must have more water, and better, in London; for it is growing year by year.  There are more than three millions of people already in what we call London; and ere you are an old man there may be between four and five millions.  Now to supply all these people with water is a duty which we must not leave to any private companies.  It must be done by a public authority, as is fit and proper in a free self-governing country.  In this matter, as in all others, we will try to do what the Royal Commission told us four years ago we ought to do.  I hope that you will see, though I may not, the day when what we call London, but which is really, nine-tenths of it, only a great nest of separate villages huddled together, will be divided into three great self-governing cities, London, Westminster, and Southwark; each with its own corporation, like that of the venerable and well-governed City of London; each managing its own water-supply, gas-supply, and sewage, and other matters besides; and managing them, like Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, and other great northern towns, far more cheaply and far better than any companies can do it for them.

But where shall we get water enough for all these millions of people?  There are no mountains near London.  But we might give them the water off our moors.

No, no, my boy.

   “He that will not when he may,
   When he will, he shall have nay.”