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Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all Presbyterians and Pagans alike for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an anchor; and when the proper time comes some few days after the other work Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth.
They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen.
I almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot.
If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.
Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible.
"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose from somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know." "Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder yet, have ye?" "Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness of his manner. "Captain Ahab." "What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?"
In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin.
Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! "Queequeg! in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake!"
But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating an ugly sound enough so much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms.
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