16 
MOBY DICK; OR 
one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and 
want a bed ; you tell me you can only give me half a one ; that the other 
half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, 
whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying 
and exasperating stories, tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feel- 
ing towards the man who you design for my bedfellow — a sort of con- 
nection, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the 
highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who 
and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe 
to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so 
good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take 
10 be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I’ve no idea 
of sleeping with a madman ; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, 
sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render 
yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.” 
“Wall,” said the landlord, fetching a long breath, “that’s a purty 
long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, 
be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived 
from the South Seas, where he brought up a lot of ’balmed Hew Zealand 
heads (great curios, you know), and he’s sold all on ’em but one, and 
that one he’s trying to sell to-night, ’cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it 
would not do to be sellin’ human heads about the streets when folks is 
goin’ to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just 
as he was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for 
all the airth like a string of inions.” 
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and 
showed that the landlord, after all, had no idea of fooling me — but at 
the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of 
a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a can- 
nibal business as selling the heads of dead idolaters ? 
“Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.” 
“He pays reg’lar,” was the rejoinder. “But come, it’s getting dread- 
ful late, you had better be turning flukes — it’s a nice bed ; Sal and me 
slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There’s plenty room 
for two to kick about in that bed ; it’s an almighty big bed that. Why, 
afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the 
