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I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him.
But I stood irresolute; when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday you won't see that harpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere come along then; DO come; WON'T ye come?"
To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen.
Oh, boys, don't be sentimental. it's bad for the digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we'll have one of those fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail! While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale! Eight bells there, forward! Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bell-boy?
The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal a march on him bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!
"Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway. "Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket."
"It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity that brought the ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but only this ginger-jub so she called it." "Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain's orders grog for the harpooneer on a whale."
I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all there's no telling. But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. "Landlord! said I, "what sort of a chap is he does he always keep such late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.
They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation.
One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful manner. "My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have the nightmare to a dead sartainty." "Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the harpooneer is it?" "Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, "the harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap.
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