{"id":"01KJNXJQTD4V0KND28D9EHDB1W","cid":"bafkreigxua6agc5xwsgesr5ad3mz55rbzqfwcfdgxezxhleefhl5q3ldbq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":65292,"char_start":57291,"chunk_index":8,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":2001,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"cried, “That’s the Grampus’s crew. I seed her reported in the offing\r\nthis morning; a three years’ voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now\r\nwe’ll have the latest news from the Feegees.”\r\n\r\nA tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung\r\nopen, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their\r\nshaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters,\r\nall bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they\r\nseemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from\r\ntheir boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then,\r\nthat they made a straight wake for the whale’s mouth—the bar—when the\r\nwrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out\r\nbrimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon\r\nwhich Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he\r\nswore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never\r\nmind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador,\r\nor on the weather side of an ice-island.\r\n\r\nThe liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even\r\nwith the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began\r\ncapering about most obstreperously.\r\n\r\nI observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though\r\nhe seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his\r\nown sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much\r\nnoise as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the\r\nsea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though\r\nbut a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I\r\nwill here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six\r\nfeet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I\r\nhave seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and\r\nburnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the\r\ndeep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem\r\nto give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a\r\nSoutherner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of\r\nthose tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When\r\nthe revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man\r\nslipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my\r\ncomrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his\r\nshipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with\r\nthem, they raised a cry of “Bulkington! Bulkington! where’s\r\nBulkington?” and darted out of the house in pursuit of him.\r\n\r\nIt was now about nine o’clock, and the room seeming almost\r\nsupernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself\r\nupon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the\r\nentrance of the seamen.\r\n\r\nNo man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal\r\nrather not sleep with your own brother. I don’t know how it is, but\r\npeople like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to\r\nsleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town,\r\nand that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely\r\nmultiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should\r\nsleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep\r\ntwo in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all\r\nsleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and\r\ncover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.\r\n\r\nThe more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the\r\nthought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a\r\nharpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of\r\nthe 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\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 "},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKT2TP8636SG490H2XGYT","peer_label":"harpooneer","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKT041HQBEV40829SSVCD","peer_label":"landlord","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYN45TKMYHSZQ3ZB1G5Q","peer_label":"bulkington","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYR80817HTNJ0VGJDB7A","peer_label":"grampuss crew","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYRK5Z1J8111JY68868T","peer_label":"jonah","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZ9W22S4AH9BW7R8KSFK","peer_label":"alleghanian ridge","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"geographical_feature","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZFNDAR5HQ5QVJBV5Y7W","peer_label":"three years","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYT4KQ5M2WD7S9PC680Z","peer_label":"grampus","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYS1M66G87VNVAVPJWFC","peer_label":"pitch-like potion of gin and molasses","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"drink","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZESGX5TJ60YYS7BBQY2","peer_label":"the whales mouth","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"establishment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZP7QAANTJ7FB9J4EXYY","peer_label":"bench","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"furniture","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZ4FWQRKCS43BG3HV3K3","peer_label":"virginia","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYRE6RXNPCK4JF7TW8F5","peer_label":"feegees","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"geographical_location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZD4YZJR0ZN7MSTHR8CD","peer_label":"carpenters plane","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZB3RYCP0JH61BK10RZB","peer_label":"skrimshander","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZXVG7C00H98901EEPWS","peer_label":"peddling his head","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZVCQCPYAM8JJVD1Q3JE","peer_label":"colds and catarrhs","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.012Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.597Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:02:01.004Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}