side now. I don't like this
cobbling sort of business--I don't like it at all; it's undignified;
it's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do tinkerings; we are their
betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square
mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and
is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not
a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at
the end. It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord!
what an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of
sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that's
the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore, when
I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their
lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at
sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay
over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the
snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before
with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied
up in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty
Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing
about with a grave-yard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make
bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We
work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask
the why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling,
and then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly.
I'll have me--let's see--how many in the ship's company, all told? But
I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate, Turk's-headed
life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then,
if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for
one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer,
caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let's to it."

CHAPTER 127. The Deck.

THE COFFIN LAID UPON TWO LINE-TUBS, BETWEEN THE VICE-BENCH AND THE OPEN
HATCHWAY; THE CARPENTER CAULKING ITS SEAMS; THE STRING OF TWISTED OAKUM
SLOWLY UNWINDING FROM A LARGE ROLL OF IT PLACED IN THE BOSOM OF
HIS FROCK.--AHAB COMES SLOWLY FROM THE CABIN-GANGWAY, AND HEARS PIP
FOLLOWING HIM.

"Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand