Moby Dick

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"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a purty long
sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy,
this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of has just arrived from
the south seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads
(great curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one
he's trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not
do to be sellin' human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to
churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was
goin' out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the
airth like a string of inions."

This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed
that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me--but at
the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a
Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal
business as selling the heads of dead idolators?