477 
THE WHITE WHALE 
“ ’Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled 
thee? Thou seem’st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not 
thou it.” 
a I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these 
grey hairs of mine ’tis not worth while disputing, ’specially with a 
superior, who’ll ne’er confess.” 
“What’s that? There’s now a patched professor in Queen Nature’s 
granite-founded College; hut methinks he’s too subservient. Where 
wert thou bom ?” 
“In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.” 
“Excellent ! Thou’st hit the world by that.” 
“I know not, sir, but I was horn there.” 
“In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way,, it’s good. Here’s 
a man from Man ; a man bom in once independent Man, and now un- 
manned of Man; which is sucked in — by what? Up with the reel! 
The dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! 
So.” 
The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in long 
dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In 
turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the tower- 
ing resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely. 
“Hold hard!” 
Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the 
tugging log was gone. 
“I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the 
mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, 
in, Tahitian ; these lines run whole, and whirling out ! come in broken, 
Tahitian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make 
another log, and mend thou the line. See to it.” 
“There he goes now; to him nothing’s happened; but to me, the 
skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul 
in, Tahitian ; these lines run whole, and whirling out ! come in broken 
and dragging slow. Ha, Pip! come to help; eh, Pip?” 
“Pip ? whom call ye Pip ? Pip jumped from the whale boat. Pip’s 
missing. Let’s see now if we haven’t fished him up here, fishermen. 
It drags hard; I guess he’s holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti ! Jerk him 
