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- parvo_, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior—though a little
swelled—of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of
various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls,
pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted
to use the carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open
that part of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him
up by the legs, and there they were.
Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter,
was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a
common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously
did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few
drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it
had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same
unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept
him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an
unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his
body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking
all the time to keep himself awake.
CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter.
The Deck—First Night Watch.
(_Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of two
lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is
firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws,
and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red
flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work._)
Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft,
and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and
shinbones. Let’s try another. Aye, now, this works better (_sneezes_).
Halloa, this bone dust is (_sneezes_)—why it’s (_sneezes_)—yes it’s
(_sneezes_)—bless my soul, it won’t let me speak! This is what an old
fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you
don’t get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don’t get it
(_sneezes_). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let’s
have that ferule and buckle-screw; I’ll be ready for them presently.
Lucky now (_sneezes_) there’s no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle
a little; but a mere shinbone—why it’s easy as making hop-poles; only I
should like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the
time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (_sneezes_)
scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs
I’ve seen in shop windows wouldn’t compare at all. They soak water,
they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored
(_sneezes_) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There; before
I saw it off, now, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the
length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that’s
the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it’s somebody else, that’s
certain.
AHAB (_advancing_). (_During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues
sneezing at times._)
Well, manmaker!
Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length.
Let me measure, sir.
Measured for a leg! good. Well, it’s not the first time. About it!
There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here,
carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.
Oh, sir, it will break bones—beware, beware!
No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery
world that can hold, man. What’s Prometheus about there?—the
blacksmith, I mean—what’s he about?
He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.
Right. It’s a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a
fierce red flame there!
Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work.
Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old
Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a
blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what’s made in fire must
properly belong to fire; and so hell’s probable. How the soot flies!
This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter,
when he’s through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel
shoulder-blades; there’s a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.
Sir?
Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I’ll order a complete man after a
desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest
modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to ’em, to stay
in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all,
brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let
me see—shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on
top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away.
Now, what’s he speaking about, and who’s he speaking to, I should like
to know? Shall I keep standing here? (_aside_).
’Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here’s one. No,
no, no; I must have a lantern.
Ho, ho! That’s it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.
What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man?
Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.
I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.
Carpenter? why that’s—but no;—a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely
gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;—or would’st
thou rather work in clay?
Sir?—Clay? clay, sir? That’s mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.
The fellow’s impious! What art thou sneezing about?
Bone is rather dusty, sir.
Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under
living people’s noses.
Sir?—oh! ah!—I guess so;—yes—oh, dear!
Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good
workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for
thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall
nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that
is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst
thou not drive that old Adam away?
Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard
something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never
entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still
pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?
It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once
was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the
soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to
a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle?
I should humbly call it a poser, sir.
Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing
may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where
thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most
solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don’t
speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be
now so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the
fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!
Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over
again; I think I didn’t carry a small figure, sir.
Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.—How long before the
leg is done?
Perhaps an hour, sir.
Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (_turns to go_). Oh, Life!
Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this
blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal
inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free
as air; and I’m down in the whole world’s books.