"Every blessed flue of mine," he said, "have gone ten feet higher, since I were a boy; and with present foundations, can't go no higher. Before folk grumble, their place is to stump up. If every cantankerous fellow, who don't know a wholesome smell by the touch of it, would put down a half-crown, if he has got one, instead of signing lies against me, I don't know but what I might lay foundations, and change my insurance, and go twenty foot higher. Though a heap of disease would break out, I expect. Look at the plants in my bed-room window, scarlets, and blue things, and lilies of the Nile! Is there any man, or woman, round these parts, half so good-looking, or so sweet to come by? They like it rarely, and so would you, if you understood what is good for you. And who was here first, you, or I, and my fathers, for three generations of boilers? We didn't want the houses; they came round us; every brick of them was laid, with my smoke to set it. And very good neighbours they have always been, till this scientific stuff came up, about cur-bones, and oxen, and the Lord knows what! I tell you what--if you don't like it, budge yourself, but you won't budge me." Such speeches only made the fuss grow louder; until the authorities felt themselves compelled to do something sanatory. There was no "Metropolitan Board of Works," as yet, I believe; or if there was, it never came up our way. But the Vestry of St. Pancras had many stormy meetings, which my father deigned not to attend; but his workmen were there in great force, and made more noise than our new steam-engine. In short, the matter came (as every matter does now, and the practice already was beginning) to what is called "a reasonable and satisfactory compromise, conciliating all interests." The complaint of the public had been about the air, and the noxious exhalations, and vile odours, as they chose to call them. But who can see the air? Who can tell what is in it? It varies with every puff of wind. Let us turn to something tangible. The earth is a thing that can be dealt with, and the earth is at the bottom of every mischief on the face of it. So, to cure the smell of our chimneys, they ordered a four-foot culvert down our valley, where the course of the old Fleet-stream had been; and the voice of the public went off to it.