Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals?
Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then:--softly, softly!
That's it--that's it! long and strong. Give way there, give way!
The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep.
Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull,
can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and
ginger-cakes don't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull,
and start your eyes out! Here," whipping out the sharp knife
from his girdle; "every mother's son of ye draw his knife,
and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's it--that's it.
Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her--
start her, my silverspoons! Start her, marling-spikes!"
Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large,
because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general,
and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing.
But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings
that he ever flew into downright passions with his congregation.
Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity.
He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a tone
so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed
so calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman
could hear such queer invocations without pulling for
dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing.
Pages:
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363