THE GOLD-FISH 117 
Market ; but that was not what filled me with horror and 
caused me to appeal to the master of the feast. Here were 
creatures which, like all fish, are fitted for existence only in a 
modified and diffused light, and which, like all Teleostean fish, 
possess no eyelids to screen off intrusive rays—here were 
these creatures, I say, confined in close proximity to an intense 
and concentrated light. 
Imagine a human being shut into an empty chamber with 
an electric burner as long as himself! Would it not be 
denounced as a torture of Carthaginian ingenuity? At all 
events, the human creature could shut his eyes, which the fish 
could not do. It took me some time and trouble to explain 
this point to the constituted authority ; but, when I had 
succeeded, it is agreeable to record that the subaqueous lights 
were immediately turned out. 
