"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last.- Down, dog, and kennel!"Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, "I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like it, sir.""Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.
"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely be called a dog, sir.""Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I'll clear the world of thee!"As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.
"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,"muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle.
"It's very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go back and strike him, or- what's that?- down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too; aye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!- his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad! Anyway there's something's on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say- worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching it. He's full of riddles; Iwonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments with him in the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old game- Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth- So here goes again. But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me, and done with me. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though- How? how?
how?- but the only way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again;and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight."
