“Splice, thou mean’st splice hands,” cried Peleg, drawing nearer. “Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a foremast hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy⁠—why Father Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there⁠—what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harpoon he’s got there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the head of a whaleboat? did you ever strike a fish?”

Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whaleboats hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:⁠—