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Poor Lazarus there , chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow , and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings , he might plug up both ears with rags , and put a corn - cob into his mouth , and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon . Euroclydon ! says old Dives , in his red silken wrapper — ( he had a redder one afterwards ) pooh , pooh ! What a fine frosty night ; how Orion glitters ; what northern lights ! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories ; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals . But what thinks Lazarus ? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights ? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here ? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator ; yea , ye gods ! go down to the fiery pit itself , in order to keep out this frost ? Now , that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives , this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas . Yet Dives himself , he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs , and being a president of a temperance society , he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans . But no more of this blubbering now , we are going a - whaling , and there is plenty of that yet to come . Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet , and see what sort of a place this “ Spouter ” may be . CHAPTER 3 . The Spouter - Inn . Entering that gable - ended Spouter - Inn , you found yourself in a wide , low , straggling entry with old - fashioned wainscots , reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft . On one side hung a very large oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked , and every way defaced , that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it , it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it , and careful inquiry of the neighbors , that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose . Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows , that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist , in the time of the New England hags , had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched . But by dint of much and earnest contemplation , and oft repeated ponderings , and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry , you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea , however wild , might not be altogether unwarranted . But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long , limber , portentous , black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue , dim , perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast . A boggy , soggy , squitchy picture truly , enough to drive a nervous man distracted . Yet was there a sort of indefinite , half - attained , unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it , till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant .
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