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1A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough.
2Enveloped in their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and
3their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat,
4and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale's mouth--the
5bar--when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a
6bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign
7cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of
8Labrador, or on the weather side of an ice-island. The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even
9with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously. I observed, however,
10that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his
11own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at once;
12and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as
13this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet in height,
14with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown
15and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some
16reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, and from his
17fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the
18revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he
19became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for some
20reason a huge favourite with them, they raised a cry of "Bulkington! Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" and darted out of
21the house in pursuit of him. It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally quiet after these
22orgies, I began to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the
23seamen. No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I
24don't know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an
25unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely
26multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for
27sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one
28apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. The more
29I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that
30being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the
31finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going
32bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight--how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?
33"Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.--I shan't sleep with him. I'll try the bench here." "Just as you
34please; I'm sorry I can't spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here"--feeling of the
35knots and notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a carpenter's plane there in the bar--wait, I say, and I'll
36make ye snug enough." So saying he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench,
37vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last
38the plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for
39heaven's sake to quit--the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could
40make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove
41in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study. I now took the measure of the
42bench, and found that it was a foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too narrow, and
43the other bench in the room was about four inches higher than the planed one--so there was no yoking them. I then placed
44the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back
45to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the
46window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the
47window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought
48to spend the night. The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal a march on him--bolt his door
49inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon second
50thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the
51harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down! Still, looking round me again, and seeing no
52possible chance of spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think that after all I
53might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be
54dropping in before long. I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after
55all--there's no telling. But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet
56no sign of my harpooneer. "Landlord!" said I, "what sort of a chap is he--does he always keep such late hours?" It was
57now hard upon twelve o'clock. The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at
58something beyond my comprehension. "No," he answered, "generally he's an early bird--airley to bed and airley to
59rise--yes, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on
60airth keeps him so late, unless, may be, he can't sell his head." "Can't sell his head?--What sort of a bamboozingly
61story is this you are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer
62is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?"
63"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he couldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked." "With
64what?" shouted I. "With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?" "I tell you what it is, landlord,"
65said I quite calmly, "you'd better stop spinning that yarn to me--I'm not green." "May be not," taking out a stick and
66whittling a toothpick, "but I rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin' his
67head." "I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's.
68"It's broke a'ready," said he. "Broke," said I--"broke, do you mean?" "Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell
69it, I guess."
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