The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the open hatchway; the Carpenter calking 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 complies with my humor more genially than that boy. —Middle aisle of a church! What’s here? ' 'Life buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck’s orders.
Oh, look, sir! Beware the hatchway! ' 'Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault. ' 'Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does. ' 'Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy shop?
' 'I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir? ' 'Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker? ' 'Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but they’ve set me now to turning it into something else.
' 'Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, inter-meddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins?
Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades. ' 'But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do. ' 'The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a coffin?
The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in hand. Dost thou never? ' 'Sing, sir? Do I sing?
Oh, I’m indifferent enough, sir, for that; but the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there was none in his spade,