Moby Dick

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with both hands on Perth's shoulders; "look ye here--HERE--can ye
smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith," sweeping one hand across his
ribbed brow; "if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay
my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes.
Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam?"

"Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?"

"Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for
though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the
bone of my skull--THAT is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play; no
more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!" jingling the leathern bag,
as if it were full of gold coins. "I, too, want a harpoon made; one that
a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will
stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff," flinging
the pouch upon the anvil. "Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered
nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses."