Moby Dick

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thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that
kick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg,
only a false leg.' And there's a mighty difference between a living
thump and a dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask,
fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living
member--that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to
myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against
that cursed pyramid--so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all
the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but
a cane--a whalebone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playful
cudgelling--in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me--not a base
kick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, the end of it--the foot
part--what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer
kicked me, THERE'S a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled
down to a point only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the
dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of
badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the