Moby Dick

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To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this
world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of
toil.



CHAPTER 63. The Crotch.


Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in
productive subjects, grow the chapters.

The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention.
It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which
is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow,
for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the
harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow.