So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on this
head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood
with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water;
clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen--that bubbling from the pumps
ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at
the lee scupper-holes.
"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this
conventional world of ours--watery or otherwise; that when a person
placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be
very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood,
straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike
and bitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverize
that subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it.
Be this conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events
Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a head like a Roman,
and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings of your
last viceroy's snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart,
and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne,
had he been born son to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate,
was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious.
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