168 GLAUCUS; OR, 



each in his office, and as cheaply paid ; who needed 

 no cumbrous baggage train of force-pumps, hose, 

 chloride of lime packets, whitewash, pails or brushes, 

 but were every man his own instrument ; and, to save 

 expense of transit, just grew on Squinado's back. 

 Do you doubt the assertion? Then lift him up 

 hither, and putting him gently into that shallow jar 

 of salt-water, look at him through the hand-magnifier, 

 and see how Nature is maxima in minimis. 



There he sits, twiddling his feelers (a substitute, 

 it seems, with Crustacea for biting their nails when 

 they are puzzled), and by no means lovely to look 

 on in vulgar eyes; — about the bigness of a man's 

 fist ; a round-bodied, spindle-shanked, crusty, prickly, 

 dirty fellow, with a villanous squint, too, in those 

 little bony eyes, which never look for a moment both 

 the same way. Never mind : many a man of genius 

 is ungainly enough ; and Nature, if you will observe, 

 as if to make up to him for his uncomeliness, has 

 arrayed him as Solomon in all his glory never 

 was arrayed, and so fulfilled one of the pro- 

 posals of old Fourier — that scavengers, chimney- 



