ardent student of whales. In his very circumscribed
experience when a young man he had seen whales, but they had generally
been a long way off; and as the old-fashioned method of rowing after
them in boats had even then been abandoned in favor of killing them by
means of the rifled cannon, Captain Hubbell had not seen very much of
these creatures until they had been towed alongside. But now he could
study whales at his leisure. It was seldom that he had to wait very long
before he would see one near enough for him to examine it with a glass,
and he never failed to avail himself of such opportunities.

The consequence of this constant and careful inspection was the
conclusion in Captain Hubbell's mind that there was only one whale in
the polar sea. He had noticed, and others had noticed, that they never
saw two at once, and the captain had used his glass so often and so well
that one morning he stamped his foot upon the deck and said to Sammy:

"I believe that's the same whale over and over and over ag'in. I
know him like a book; he has his ways and his manners, and it isn't
reasonable to suppose that every whale has the same ways and manners. He
comes just so near the vessel, and then he stops and blows. Then he suns
his back for a while, and then he throws up his flukes and sounds. He
does that as regular as if he was a polar clock. I know the very shape
of his flukes; and two or three days ago, as he was soundin', I thought
that the tip of the upper one looked as if it had been damaged--as if he
had broken it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, when
I have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke, and
there's that same old break. Every time I have looked I have found it.
It can't be that there are a lot o' whales in here and each one of 'em
with a battered fluke."

"That does look sort o' queer," said Sammy, reflectively.

"Sammy Block," said Captain Jim, impressively, "it's my opinion that
there's only one whale in this here polar sea; an', more than that,
it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this world, an' that that
feller we've seen is the one! Samuel Block, he's the last whale in the
whole world! Now you know that I wanted to go a-whalin'--that's natural
enough--but since Mr. Gibbs has got through, and has said that I could
take this vessel an' go a-whalin' if I wanted to--which would be easy
enough, for we have got guns aboard which would kill any right-whale--I
do