THE WHITE WHALE isi 
by certain strange signs and innuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint con- 
cerning his coffin. 
“A lifebuoy of a coffin !” cried Starbuck, staring. 
“Rather queer, that, I should say,” said Stubb. 
It will make a good enough one,” said Flask, “the carpenter here 
can arrange it easily.” 
“Bring it up; there’s nothing else for it,” said Starbuck, after a 
melancholy pause. “Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so — the 
coffin, I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.” 
“And shall I nail down the lid, sir ?” moving his hand as with a 
hammer. 
“Aye.” 
“And shall I caulk the seams, sir?” moving his hand as with a 
caulking-iron. 
“Aye.” 
“And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?” moving hrs 
hand as with a pitch-pot. 
“Away ! what possesses thee to this ? Make a lifebuoy of 
the coffin, and no more — Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with 
me.” 
“He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he 
baulks. How I don’t like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and 
he wears it like a gentleman ; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and 
he won’t put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with 
that coffin? And now I’m ordered to make a lifebuoy of it. It’s 
like turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side 
now. I don’t like this cobbling sort of business — I don’t like it at 
all; it’s undignified; it’s not my place. Let tinkers’ brats do tinker- 
ings; we are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, 
Virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly 
begins at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and 
comes to an end at the conclusion ; not a cobbler’s job, that’s at an end 
in the middle, and at the beginning at the end. It’s the old woman’s 
tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old 
women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of sixty-five who ran 
away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that’s the reason 
