“Young lady,” said the Witch of the Sea, “I haven’t had any hand in this matter.” (But of course I can’t say this was true. I incline myself to think she had had her finger in the pie.) “I can’t undo the spell—not now. If you want to find your friend’s brother, you must go West toward the coast.”
“Take a bee line,” said the Salem witch.
“I don’t know what that is,” said the mermaid, who didn’t know what a bee was.
“As the crow flies,” said the Salem witch.
“Crow?” said the mermaid, perplexed.
“As the mackerel swims,” said the sea witch.
“Oh, I see,” said the mermaid. “Thank you very much. Pray keep the stones. Good-night;” and she turned to Moby Dick. “You’ll go with me?”
“To be sure,” said the whale. “That’s rather a dangerous coast for me,” he thought to himself. “But never mind; if they come after me I can sink a whaler as easy as nothing. I’ll go with her. She reminds me of a whaless I used to go to school with;” and Moby Dick looked at the little slim mermaid in her bridesmaid’s dress, and heaved a sigh about a quarter of an acre in extent. “I’m your whale,” he said, cheerfully; and away they dashed at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.
Every one in the sea knew that the professor’s grandson had fallen in love with a wooden image, and was following it about the world. The very porpoises talked about it to each other. The whole family were dreadfully mortified.
“Suppose he marries her!” said his sisters.