[whoops typo - this is Chapter 21]
Elijah, the glitter-eyed prophet, accosts our heroes again, enquiring about five mystery sailors.
he finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence.
Queequeg "
explains his custom of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place.
And then quite a famous character
"Holloa! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. "He's a lively chief mate, that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to." And so saying he went on deck, and we followed.
Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin.
