It was now about nine oclock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the seamen.
No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I dont know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.
The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight- how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?
Landlord! Ive changed my mind about that harpooneer. I shant sleep with him. Ill try the bench here.
Just as you please; Im sorry I cant spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and its a plaguy rough board here feeling of the knots and notches. But wait a bit, Skrimshander; Ive got a carpenters plane there in the bar- wait, I say, and Ill make ye snug enough. So saying he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heavens sake to quit- the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study.
I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher than the planed one- so there was no yoking them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night.
The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldnt I steal a march on him- bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!
Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable night unless in some other persons bed, I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, Ill wait awhile; he must be dropping in before long. Ill have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all- theres no telling.
But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.
Landlord! said I, what sort of a chap is he- does he always keep such late hours? It was now hard upon twelve oclock.
The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. No, he answered, generally hes an early bird- airley to bed and airley to rise- yes, hes the bird what catches the worm. But tonight he went out a peddling, you see, and I dont see what on airth keeps him so late, unless, may be, he cant sell his head.
Cant sell his head? What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me? getting into a towering rage. Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?
Thats precisely it, said the landlord, and I told him he couldnt sell it here, the markets overstocked.
With what? shouted I.
With heads to be sure; aint there too many heads in the world?
I tell you what it is, landlord, said I quite calmly, youd better stop spinning that yarn to me- Im not green.
May be not, taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, but I rayther guess youll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin his head.
Ill break it for him, said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlords.
Its broke aready, said he.
Broke, said I- broke, do you mean?
Sartain, and thats the very reason he cant sell it, I guess.
Landlord, said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snow-storm- landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow- a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and Ive no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.
Wall, said the landlord, fetching a long breath, thats a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and hes sold all on em but one, and that one hes trying to sell tonight, cause tomorrows Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin human heads about the streets when folks is goin to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions.
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me- but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators?