Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world.

 

[Old Thunder]

But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.

 

[Old Thunder]

How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends.

 

[Old Thunder]

Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.

 

[Old Thunder]

Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg -- a cosy, loving pair.

 

[Old Thunder]

CHAPTER XI.
Nightgown.​

We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when at last by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though daybreak was yet some way down the future.

 

[Old Thunder]

Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans.

 

[Old Thunder]

We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room.

 

[Old Thunder]

The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.

 

[Old Thunder]

Nothing exists in itself.