{"id":"01KFNR86YA9WBA6CSF118Z3FW3","cid":"bafkreib7er6mhwin44i3uogug4u7c7tt4iyvwwxislj5efmtbhuyowfspe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1506,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.895Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1438,"text":"a peddling, you see, and I don’t see what on airth keeps him so late,\r\nunless, may be, he can’t sell his head.”\r\n\r\n“Can’t sell his head?—What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are\r\ntelling me?” getting into a towering rage. “Do you pretend to say,\r\nlandlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed\r\nSaturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around\r\nthis town?”\r\n\r\n“That’s precisely it,” said the landlord, “and I told him he couldn’t\r\nsell it here, the market’s overstocked.”\r\n\r\n“With what?” shouted I.\r\n\r\n“With heads to be sure; ain’t there too many heads in the world?”\r\n\r\n“I tell you what it is, landlord,” said I quite calmly, “you’d better\r\nstop spinning that yarn to me—I’m not green.”\r\n\r\n“May be not,” taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, “but I\r\nrayther guess you’ll be done _brown_ if that ere harpooneer hears you a\r\nslanderin’ his head.”\r\n\r\n“I’ll break it for him,” said I, now flying into a passion again at\r\nthis unaccountable farrago of the landlord’s.\r\n\r\n“It’s broke a’ready,” said he.\r\n\r\n“Broke,” said I—“_broke_, do you mean?”\r\n\r\n“Sartain, and that’s the very reason he can’t sell it, I guess.”\r\n\r\n“Landlord,” said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a\r\nsnow-storm—“landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one\r\nanother, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a\r\nbed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half\r\nbelongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have\r\nnot yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and\r\nexasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling\r\ntowards the man whom you design for my bedfellow—a sort of connexion,\r\nlandlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest\r\ndegree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this\r\nharpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the\r\nnight with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay\r\nthat story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good\r\nevidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I’ve no idea of\r\nsleeping with a madman; and you, sir, _you_ I mean, landlord, _you_,\r\nsir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render\r\nyourself liable to a criminal prosecution.”\r\n\r\n“Wall,” said the landlord, fetching a long breath, “that’s a purty long\r\nsarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be\r\neasy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived\r\nfrom the south seas, where he bought up a lot of ’balmed New Zealand\r\nheads (great curios, you know), and he’s sold all on ’em but one, and\r\nthat one he’s trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it\r\nwould not do to be sellin’ human heads about the streets when folks is\r\ngoin’ to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as\r\nhe was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for\r\nall the airth like a string of inions.”\r\n\r\nThis account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed\r\nthat the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me—but at the\r\nsame time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a\r\nSaturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal\r\nbusiness as selling the heads of dead idolators?\r\n\r\n“Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86YE3S4FBKVTQW1CSK3Q","peer_label":"Chunk 6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86YW3MDR7ZTHWCBTGAEV","peer_label":"Chunk 4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.572Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:14.954Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}