to gain a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him.

“Aye, the Pequod — that ship there,” he said, drawing back his whole arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.

“Yes,” said I, “we have just signed the articles.”

“Anything down there about your souls?”

“About what?”

“Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though, I know many chaps that hav’n’t got any, — good luck to ’em; and they are all the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon.”