pray. Itās queer; very queer; and heās queer too; aye, take him fore and aft, heās about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!ā āhis eyes like powder-pans! is he mad? Anyway thereās something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aināt in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he donāt sleep then. Didnāt that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old manās hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess heās got what some folks ashore call a conscience; itās a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they sayā āworse nor a toothache. Well, well; I donāt know what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching it. Heās full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; whatās that for, I should like to know? Whoās made appointments with him in the hold? Aināt that queer, now? But thereās no telling, itās the old gameā āHere goes for a snooze. Damn me, itās worth a fellowās while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep.
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