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CHAPTER 30 . The Pipe . When Stubb had departed , Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks ; and then , as had been usual with him of late , calling a sailor of the watch , he sent him below for his ivory stool , and also his pipe . Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck , he sat and smoked . In old Norse times , the thrones of the sea - loving Danish kings were fabricated , saith tradition , of the tusks of the narwhale . How could one look at Ahab then , seated on that tripod of bones , without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized ? For a Khan of the plank , and a king of the sea , and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab . Some moments passed , during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs , which blew back again into his face . “ How now , ” he soliloquized at last , withdrawing the tube , “ this smoking no longer soothes . Oh , my pipe ! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone ! Here have I been unconsciously toiling , not pleasuring — aye , and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while ; to windward , and with such nervous whiffs , as if , like the dying whale , my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble . What business have I with this pipe ? This thing that is meant for sereneness , to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs , not among torn iron - grey locks like mine . I’ll smoke no more — ” He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea . The fire hissed in the waves ; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made . With slouched hat , Ahab lurchingly paced the planks . CHAPTER 31 . Queen Mab . Next morning Stubb accosted Flask . “ Such a queer dream , King - Post , I never had . You know the old man’s ivory leg , well I dreamed he kicked me with it ; and when I tried to kick back , upon my soul , my little man , I kicked my leg right off ! And then , presto ! Ahab seemed a pyramid , and I , like a blazing fool , kept kicking at it . But what was still more curious , Flask — you know how curious all dreams are — through all this rage that I was in , I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself , that after all , it was not much of an insult , that kick from Ahab . ‘ Why , ’ thinks I , ‘ what’s the row ? It’s not a real leg , only a false leg . ’ And there’s a mighty difference between a living thump and a dead thump . That’s what makes a blow from the hand , Flask , fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane . The living member — that makes the living insult , my little man . And thinks I to myself all the while , mind , while I was stubbing my silly toes against that cursed pyramid — so confoundedly contradictory was it all , all the while , I say , I was thinking to myself , ‘ what’s his leg now , but a cane — a whalebone cane . Yes , ’ thinks I , ‘ it was only a playful cudgelling — in fact , only a whaleboning that he gave me — not a base kick .
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