and influence over matters far less important and less pressing,
the other three must laugh at them, and more than laugh at them;
and ask them: 'Why have you education, why have you influence,
why have you votes, why are you freemen and not slaves, if not to
preserve the comfort, the decency, the health, the lives of men,
women, and children--most of those latter your own wives and your
own children?'"

"But what shall we do with the water?"

"Well, after all, that is a more practical matter than
speculations grounded on the supposition that all classes will do
their duty. But the first thing we will do will be to give to the
very poorest houses a constant supply, at high pressure; so that
everybody may take as much water as he likes, instead of having to
keep the water in little cisterns, where it gets foul and putrid
only too often."

"But will they not waste it then?"

"So far from it, wherever the water has been laid on at high
pressure, the waste, which is terrible now--some say that in
London one-third of the water is wasted--begins to lessen; and
both water and expense are saved. If you will only think, you
will see one reason why. If a woman leaves a high-pressure tap
running, she will flood her place and her neighbour's too. She
will be like the magician's servant, who called up the demon to
draw water for him; and so he did: but when he had begun he would
not stop, and if the magician had not come home, man and house
would have been washed away."