shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with
dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks.
Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a
dark-looking den--the bar--a rude attempt at a right whale's head.
Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the
whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it.
Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters,
bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction,
like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called
him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money,
dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.
Though true cylinders without--within, the villanous green goggling
glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom.
Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround
these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is
but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass--
the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling.

Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about
a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander.
I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated
with a room, received for answer that his house was full--
not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping his forehead,
"you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye?
I s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'd better get used to that
sort of thing."

I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I