Moby Dick by Herman Melville Page A

dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall
one, by the by, and then—still minus his trowsers—he hunted up his
boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his
next movement was to crush himself—boots in hand, and hat on—under
the bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I
inferred he was hard at work booting himself; though by no law of
propriety that I ever heard of, is any man required to be private
when putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature
in the transition stage—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was
just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest
possible manners. His education was not yet completed. He was an
undergraduate. If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very
probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then,
if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of
getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he emerged with his
hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes, and began
creaking and limping about the room, as if, not being much accustomed
to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones—probably not made
to order either—rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off
of a bitter cold morning.
    Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the
street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view
into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that
Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots
on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet
somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as
possible. He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that
time in the morning any Christian would have washed his face; but
Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his
ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his
waistcoat, and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand
centre table, dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face.
I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he
takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden
stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and
striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous
scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg,
this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. Afterwards I
wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of what fine
steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp the
long straight edges are always kept.
    The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out
of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and
sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton.

Chapter 5
*
    Breakfast.
    I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted
the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards
him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter
of my bedfellow.
    However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a
good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own
proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not
be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be
spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully
laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you
perhaps think for.
    The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in
the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at.
They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and
third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea
blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny
company, with bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing
monkey jackets for morning gowns.
    You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore.
This