{"id":"01KFNR86YW3MDR7ZTHWCBTGAEV","cid":"bafkreidiuru3qqgexsovwdpzuxfciivfvxl6d4krsir3oo7ugdwy5loidy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1446,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.895Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1378,"text":"the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over.\r\nBesides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home\r\nand going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at\r\nmidnight—how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?\r\n\r\n“Landlord! I’ve changed my mind about that harpooneer.—I shan’t sleep\r\nwith him. I’ll try the bench here.”\r\n\r\n“Just as you please; I’m sorry I can’t spare ye a tablecloth for a\r\nmattress, and it’s a plaguy rough board here”—feeling of the knots and\r\nnotches. “But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I’ve got a carpenter’s plane\r\nthere in the bar—wait, I say, and I’ll make ye snug enough.” So saying\r\nhe procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting\r\nthe bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning\r\nlike an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the\r\nplane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was\r\nnear spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit—the\r\nbed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing\r\nin the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the\r\nshavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in\r\nthe middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a\r\nbrown study.\r\n\r\nI now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too\r\nshort; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too\r\nnarrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher\r\nthan the planed one—so there was no yoking them. I then placed the\r\nfirst bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall,\r\nleaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I\r\nsoon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from\r\nunder the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all,\r\nespecially as another current from the rickety door met the one from\r\nthe window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in\r\nthe immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the\r\nnight.\r\n\r\nThe devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn’t I steal\r\na march on him—bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be\r\nwakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon\r\nsecond thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next\r\nmorning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be\r\nstanding in the entry, all ready to knock me down!\r\n\r\nStill, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of\r\nspending a sufferable night unless in some other person’s bed, I began\r\nto think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices\r\nagainst this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I’ll wait awhile; he must be\r\ndropping in before long. I’ll have a good look at him then, and perhaps\r\nwe may become jolly good bedfellows after all—there’s no telling.\r\n\r\nBut though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes,\r\nand going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.\r\n\r\n“Landlord!” said I, “what sort of a chap is he—does he always keep such\r\nlate hours?” It was now hard upon twelve o’clock.\r\n\r\nThe landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be\r\nmightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. “No,” he\r\nanswered, “generally he’s an early bird—airley to bed and airley to\r\nrise—yes, he’s the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out\r\na 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","title":"Chunk 4"},"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":"01KFNR86YA9WBA6CSF118Z3FW3","peer_label":"Chunk 5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86XRF4VA30Z2ZSDFGTEB","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.607Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:15.029Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}