"
"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.
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