178 GLAUCUS; OR, 
sariat), this cardinal virtue of cheapness ought to 
make Squinado an interesting object in the eyes of 
the present generation; especially as he was at that 
moment a true sanitary martyr, having, like many 
of his human fellow-workers, got into a fearful 
scrape by meddling with those existing interests, 
and “vested rights which are but vested wrongs,” 
which have proved fatal already to more than one 
Board of Health. For last night, as he was sitting 
quietly under a stone in four fathoms water, he 
became aware (whether by sight, smell, or that 
mysterious sixth sense, to us unknown, which seems 
to reside in his delicate feelers) of a palpable 
nuisance somewhere in the neighbourhood; and, like 
a trusty servant of the public, turned out of his bed 
instantly and went in search; till he discovered, 
hanging among what he judged to be the stems of 
ore-weed (Laminaria), three or four large pieces of 
stale thornback, of most evil savour, and highly pre- 
judicial to the purity of the sea, and the health of 
the neighbouring herrings. Happy Squinado! He 
needed not to discover the limits of his authority, to 
