Moby Dick

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I'm for it;" and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.

By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether
or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of
escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb
now called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing
across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French
taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a
huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper
spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a
symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon her head boards, in
large gilt letters, he read "Bouton de Rose,"--Rose-button, or Rose-bud;
and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship.

Though Stubb did not understand the BOUTON part of the inscription, yet
the word ROSE, and the bulbous figure-head put together, sufficiently
explained the whole to him.