Moby Dick

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Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J---, then
commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be
dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in
the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales,
the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength
ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily
denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war
as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there
is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this
impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a
portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business
with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such
a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest
port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider
the Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul
of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the
sperm whale will stand no nonsense.