Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

But I am one of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud.

 

[Old Thunder]

Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make.

 

[Old Thunder]

But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unnaccountable old crony Bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two.

 

[Old Thunder]

And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside.

 

[Old Thunder]

Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that we was such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book.

 

[Old Thunder]

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth---"*

*The quotation is from the Bible (King James Version), Matthew 6:19-20.

 

[Old Thunder]

"Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, what lay shall we give this young man?"

 

[Old Thunder]

"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it? -- 'where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay---'"

 

[Old Thunder]

Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and seventy-seventh!

 

[Old Thunder]

Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and dust do corrupt.