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But be all this as it may ; let the unseen , ambiguous synod in the air , or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire , have to do or not with earthly Ahab , yet , in this present matter of his leg , he took plain practical procedures ; — he called the carpenter . And when that functionary appeared before him , he bade him without delay set about making a new leg , and directed the mates to see him supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw - ivory ( Sperm Whale ) which had thus far been accumulated on the voyage , in order that a careful selection of the stoutest , clearest - grained stuff might be secured . This done , the carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that night ; and to provide all the fittings for it , independent of those pertaining to the distrusted one in use . Moreover , the ship’s forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold ; and , to accelerate the affair , the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed . CHAPTER 107 . The Carpenter . Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn , and take high abstracted man alone ; and he seems a wonder , a grandeur , and a woe . But from the same point , take mankind in mass , and for the most part , they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates , both contemporary and hereditary . But most humble though he was , and far from furnishing an example of the high , humane abstraction ; the Pequod’s carpenter was no duplicate ; hence , he now comes in person on this stage . Like all sea - going ship carpenters , and more especially those belonging to whaling vessels , he was , to a certain off - handed , practical extent , alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own ; the carpenter’s pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material . But , besides the application to him of the generic remark above , this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring in a large ship , upon a three or four years ’ voyage , in uncivilized and far - distant seas . For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary duties : — repairing stove boats , sprung spars , reforming the shape of clumsy - bladed oars , inserting bull’s eyes in the deck , or new tree - nails in the side planks , and other miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special business ; he was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes , both useful and capricious . The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold , was his vice - bench ; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several vices , of different sizes , and both of iron and of wood . At all times except when whales were alongside , this bench was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try - works .
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