"Thank you so much," murmured George, looking about him. "Where - where
do you keep it?"
"It's always in the same place my boy," was the stolid reply: "just
behind you."
"I don't see it," said George, turning round.
"Why, bless us, where's your eyes?" was the man's comment, as he twisted
George round and pointed up and down the stream. "There's enough of it
to see, ain't there?"
"Oh!" exclaimed George, grasping the idea; "but we can't drink the river,
you know!"
"No; but you can drink SOME of it," replied the old fellow. "It's what
I've drunk for the last fifteen years."
George told him that his appearance, after the course, did not seem a
sufficiently good advertisement for the brand; and that he would prefer
it out of a pump.
We got some from a cottage a little higher up. I daresay THAT was only
river water, if we had known. But we did not know, so it was all right.
What the eye does not see, the stomach does not get upset over.
We tried river water once, later on in the season, but it was not a
success. We were coming down stream, and had pulled up to have tea in a
backwater near Windsor. Our jar was empty, and it was a case of going
without our tea or taking water from the river.
