But, besides the application
to him of the generic remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod
was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical
emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three
or four years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas.
For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary duties:--
repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of
clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new
tree-nails in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters
more directly pertaining to his special business; he was moreover
unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes,
both useful and capricious.
The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold,
was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with
several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood.
At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely
lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.
A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole:
the carpenter claps it into one of his ever ready vices,
and straightway files it smaller. A lost landbird of strange
plumage strays on board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved
rods of right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory,
the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it.
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