I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this
harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe
to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will
be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head,
which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer
is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman;
and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce
me to do so knowingly would thereby render yourself liable
to a criminal prosecution."
"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a
purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then.
But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin'
you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up
a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know),
and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell
to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin'
human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to churches.
He wanted to last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin'
out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all
the airth like a string of inions."
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery,
and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me--
but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed
out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such
a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators?
"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.
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