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And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. I'm surprising myself at how full of knowledge and wisdom the "boring parts" are.

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some...

In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so.

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim*), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second-hand from the sailors on the forecastle. *Not to eat beans.

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck.

Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven.

But being paid, -- what will compare with it?

The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.

And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.

On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of.

Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about -- however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right: that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way -- either in a physical sense or metaphysical point of view, that...

Tell me that.

Who ain't a slave?

Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance?

What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament?

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks?

But even this wears off in time.