202 
MOBY DICK; OR 
But little King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little 
King-Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead 
standpoint of his did by no means satisfy King-Post. 
“I can’t see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on 
to that.” 
Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady 
his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his 
lofty shoulders for a pedestal. 
“Good a masthead as any, sir. Will you mount ?” 
“That I will and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish 
you fifty feet taller.” 
Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks 
of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm 
to Flask’s foot, and then putting Fl'ask’s hand on his hearse-plumed 
head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dex- 
terous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And 
here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing 
him with a breastband to lean against and steady himself by. 
At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous 
habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect 
posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously 
perverse and cross-running seas; still more strange to see him giddily 
perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But 
the sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more 
curious ; for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy unthought 
of barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmo- 
niously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask 
seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looker nobler than the rider. Though 
truly vivacious, tumultuous ostentatious little Flask would now and 
then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby 
give to the negro’s lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity 
stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter 
her tides and her seasons for that. 
Meanwhile Stubb, the second mate, betrayed no such far-gazing solic- 
itudes. The whales might have made one of their regular sound- 
ings, not a temporary dive from mere fright ; and if that were the case, 
Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the 
