"But why stronger?" he went on at once with his perpetual queries.
"Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you? Don't you see?
Don't you see?"

"But the hopelessness of it," I protested.

"I agree with you," he answered. "Then why move at all, since
moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there
would be no hopelessness. But,--and there it is,--we want to live
and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it
is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move.
If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this
life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life
that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive for ever.
Bah! An eternity of piggishness!"

He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at
the break of the poop and called me to him.

"By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?" he asked.

"One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir," I answered.

He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the
companion stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly
curing some men amidships.