App-PigLatin

 view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt

of getting under the bed to put them on.  At last, he emerged

with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes,

and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not being

much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones--

probably not made to order either--rather pinched and tormented

him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning.



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.

He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself.  At that time in

the morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg,

to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions

to his chest, arms, and hands.  He then donned his waistcoat,

and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table,

dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face.

I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold,

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors

did there; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent

their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost.

Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.



And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians,

wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish.

Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home.



By hints I asked him whether he did not propose going back,

and having a coronation; since he might now consider his father

dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts.

He answered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity,

or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure

and undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him.

But by and by, he said, he would return,--as soon as he felt

himself baptized again.  For the nonce, however, he proposed

to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans.

They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was

in lieu of a sceptre now.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

Postscript





In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught

but substantiated facts.  But after embattling his facts,

an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise,

which might tell eloquently upon his cause--such an advocate,

would he not be blame-worthy?



It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,

even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them

for their functions is gone through.  There is a saltcellar

of state, so called, and there may be a caster of state.

How they use the salt, precisely--who knows?  Certain I am,

however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation,

even as a head of salad.  Can it be, though, that they

anoint it with a view of making its interior run well,

as they anoint machinery?  Much might be ruminated here,

concerning the essential dignity of this regal process,

because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow

who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing.

In truth, a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally,

that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.

As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality.



But the only thing to be considered here is this--what kind of oil is used

at coronations?  Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil,

nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.

What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured,

unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?



Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings

and queens with coronation stuff!







CHAPTER 26



Knights and Squires





The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket,

and a Quaker by descent.  He was a long, earnest man,

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.



Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers

handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads

of their yet suspended boats.  If the wind only held,

little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits

of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental

seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number.

And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan,

Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming,

like the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession

of the Siamese!  So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we

sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden,

the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention

to something in our wake.



Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.

It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling something

like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come

and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing.

Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his