"
"Did'st thou cross his wake again?"
"Twice."
"But could not fasten?"
"Didn't want to try to; ain't one limb enough? What should I
do without this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't
bite so much as he swallows."
"Well, then," interrupted Bunger, "give him your left arm for
bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemen"--very gravely
and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession--"Do
you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale
are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is
quite impossible for him to completely digest even a man's arm?
And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale's
malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to
swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints.
But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient
of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives,
once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest,
and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave
him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see?
No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully
incorporate it into his general bodily system.
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