90 
MOBY DICK; OR 
telling him to establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon 
the sleeper’s rear, as though feeling if it was soft enough; and then, 
without more ado, sat quietly down there. 
“Gracious! Queequeg, don’t sit there,” said I. 
“Oh ! perry dood seat,” said Queequeg, “my country way; won’t hurt 
him face.” 
“Face!” said I, “call that his face? very benevolent countenance 
then; hut how hard he breathes, he’s heaving himself; get off, Quee- 
queg, you are heavy, it’s grinding the face of the poor. Get off, 
Queequeg ! Look, he’ll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don’t wake.” 
Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, 
and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe 
passing over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon 
questioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand 
that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, 
the king, chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of 
fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans ; and to furnish a house 
comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy 
fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was 
very convenient on an excursion; much better than those garden- 
chairs which are convertible into walking-sticks ; upon occasion, a chief 
calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself 
under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. 
While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the 
tomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper’s 
head. 
“What’s that for, Queequeg ?” 
“Perry easy, kill-e; oh, perry easy!” 
He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk- 
pipe, which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and 
soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. 
The strong vapour now completely filling the contracted hole, it began 
to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness ; then seemed 
troubled in the nose ; then revolved over once or twice ; then sat up and 
rubbed his eyes. 
“Holloa!” he breathed at last, “who he ye smokers?” 
“Shipped men,” answered I, “when does she sail?” 
