What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,
unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a
world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs;
what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his;
that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short,
black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face.
You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk
without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes
there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand;
and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession,
lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading
them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed,
instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe
into his mouth.
I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least of
his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air,
whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless
miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it;
and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a
camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all
mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated
as a sort of disinfecting agent.
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