"What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumping
on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.
"I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers."
"Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from
behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show that he's converted.
Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg, "art thou at present
in communion with any Christian church?"
"Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational Church."
Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket
ships at last come to be converted into the churches.
"First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that worships
in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so saying,
taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow
bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully,
came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks,
took a good long look at Queequeg.
"How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me;
"not very long, I rather guess, young man."
"No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either,
or it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face.
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