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"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added--"come along with ye."

Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me.

I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the Pequod was as good a ship as any -- I thought the best -- and all this I now repeated to Peleg.

"Well, what dost thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where you stand?"

"Not much," I replied--"nothing but water; considerable horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I think."

"Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what did ye see?"

The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see.

Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean.

But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand.

For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest.

"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back to me and...

"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact."

"Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!"

"I do, sir."

"Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant service -- don't aggravate me -- I won't have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel inclined for it?"

"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant---"

"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now; sure of that?"

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might...

"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat! -- ah, ah!"

"What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?"