Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir;
how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling
of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times.
May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?
It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was;
so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul.
Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair,
do I. Is't a riddle?
I should humbly call it a poser, sir.
Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing
may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely
where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite?
In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?
Hold, don't speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg,
though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayest not thou, carpenter,
feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!
Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again;
I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.
Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long
before this leg is done?
Perhaps an hour, sir.
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