Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

CHAPTER X.
A Bosom Friend.
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Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time.

 

[Old Thunder]

He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way.

 

[Old Thunder]

But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page -- as I fancied -- stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment.

 

[Old Thunder]

He would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited.

 

[Old Thunder]

With much interest I sat watching him.

 

[Old Thunder]

Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face -- at least to my taste -- his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable.

 

[Old Thunder]

You cannot hide the soul.

 

[Old Thunder]

Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils.

 

[Old Thunder]

And besides all this, there was a certain loft bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim.

 

[Old Thunder]

He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.