ak thoroughly well
for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall
nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that
is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst
thou not drive that old Adam away?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard
something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never
entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still
pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once
was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the
soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a
hair, do I. Is't a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing
may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where
thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most
solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't
speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now
so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery
pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again;
I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long before the
leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (TURNS TO GO). Oh, Life! Here
I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for
a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will
not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the
whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with
the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was
the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By
heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to
one small, compendious vertebra. So.

CARPENTER (RESUMING HIS WORK).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says
he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he's
queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into
Mr. Starbuck all the time--queer--sir--queer, queer, very queer. And
here's