Page:Moby-Dick (1851) US edition.djvu/174

142 among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I’ll smoke no more&mdash;”

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.

 

morning Stubb accosted Flask.

“Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man’s ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask&mdash;you know how curious all dreams are&mdash;through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab. ‘Why,’ thinks I, ‘what’s the row? It’s not a real leg, only a false one.’ And there’s a mighty difference between a living thump and a dead thump. That’s what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living member&mdash;that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against that cursed pyramid&mdash;so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, ‘what’s his leg now, but a cane&mdash;a whalebone cane. Yes,’ thinks I, ‘it was only a playful cudgelling&mdash;in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me&mdash;not a base kick. Besides,’ thinks I, ‘look at it once; why, the end of it&mdash;the foot part&mdash;what a small sort of end it