18 
MOBY DICK; OR 
shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this myste- 
rious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in 
it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a 
sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave 
myself a kink in the neck. 
I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about 
this head-peddling harpooneer, -and his door mat. After thinking 
some time on the bedside, I got up and took off my monkey-jacket, 
and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off 
my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt-sleeves. But beginning 
to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, and remembering what 
the landlord said about the harpooneer’s not coming home at all that 
night, it being so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of 
my pantaloons and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled 
into bed, and commended myself to the care of heaven. 
Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crock- 
ery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not 
sleep for a long -time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had 
pretty nearly made a good thing offing towards the land of Nod, when I 
heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light 
come into the room from under the door. 
“Lord save me,” thinks I, “that must be the harpooneer, the infernal 
head-pedlar.” But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a 
word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical 
New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and 
without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off 
from me on the floor in one corner, and then began working away 
at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in 
the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted 
for some time while employed in unlacing the bag’s mouth. This 
accomplished, however, he turned round — when, good heavens! what 
a sight ! Such a face ! It was of a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here 
and there stuck over with large, blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s 
just as I thought, he’s a terrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got 
dreadfully cut, and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that 
moment he chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly 
saw they could not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on 
