n their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft
there! I would e'en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic
is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!"

CHAPTER 121. Midnight.--The Forecastle Bulwarks.

STUBB AND FLASK MOUNTED ON THEM, AND PASSING ADDITIONAL LASHINGS OVER
THE ANCHORS THERE HANGING.

"No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but you
will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how long
ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn't you once say that
whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its
insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft
and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn't you say so?"

"Well, suppose I did? What then? I've part changed my flesh since that
time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we ARE loaded with powder
barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get
afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have
pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now. Shake yourself; you're
Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat
collar. Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine
Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But
hark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing. First take your leg off
from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope;
now listen. What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's
lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't
got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don't you see, you timber-head,
that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first
struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred
carries rods, and Ahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no more
danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand
ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose you would
have every man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running
up the corner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather,
and trailing behind like his sash. Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's
easy to be sensible; why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be
sensible."

"I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard."

"Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible, that's
a fact.