The captain said nothing, and the men were ordered to their tasks. His expression was not pleasant, for it was evident that he did not like a statement, apparently reliable, which ran counter to views he had just expressed. But it is a fact that the ambergris was kept dry during the remainder of the voyage. It took over three days and nights to cut-in, try-out and boil down our leviathan, and stow down the oil. Just before the figures were announced, there was a resumption of the guessing. The best guess was a hundred and nine barrels; the actual yield was one hundred and eleven barrels and four gallons. After the cleaning up, the whale and his product constituted the topic of conversation among the crew for a long time.
In the social hour they made all manner of fun of me, or rather of the prospective watch. One said that the watch would prove to be second-hand; another that it wouldn’t go; a third that when it was wound the noise would be as loud as that made by the winding of a clock; and a fourth that watches of the kind were sold at five dollars the gross. They evidently endeavored to draw me out, but I was silent. Then they took up the ambergris and, in a serious way, began to discuss its value and uses. Several men thought that it was the perfume itself, but Kreelman insisted that it was the substance which prevented evaporation. Then tales were told of the fabulous sums which druggists had paid for the substance and more fabulous tales about the size and weight of various lumps of the article. Then some one asked:
“Does Fancy Chest get the ambergris beside the watch?”
One would think that such a foolish question would only have elicited a laugh; instead, it gave rise to an animated discussion.
“If he does get both, he’ll be a kind of Crocus,” another declared.
“And who was Crocus?”
“He was a rich man—lived in New York—had more money than any other man in the world.”
Though I was a boy, I had seen enough of my companions to know that any proffer of enlightenment would be resented; so I did not tell them that Croesus was intended.
In answer to the first question, one of the men said, “This is the way I look at it. If sightin’ the biggest whale wins a prize, then the ambergris in it, which is so rarely found in whales, is a prize also and belongs to Fancy Chest.”
The countenances of most of the men betrayed anxiety, but the expression changed and there was a roar of laughter when Ohoo said, “If Fancy Chest get watch and ambergris, den he get whole ting—de blubber, jaw bone and teeth. Why not? Dat ain’t no common sense.”