The remark was greeted with a derisive laugh.
One of our visitors retorted, “It would take a good many months to get seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of sperm oil, and a good many weeks to try-out and stow down.”
“We’ve got a patent machine. We do it all in one job.”
“Pshaw! That’s nonsense.”
“Men are pretty smart whalemen,” continued our man, “when they can pick out a whale that’s got a lump of gold in him.”
“You don’t mean to say——” The man stopped.
“Yes, I do mean to say that we’ve got stowed away a lump of ambergris that’s worth more than half your catch of over three years. Suppose we change the names of the vessels and call our ship the Magic?”
The announcement, coupled with the laugh which followed, was too much for the visitors, and the conversation turned to other subjects—the common things which pertain to a sailor’s life, such as the food, the weather and relations with the officers. When the crews of different vessels meet, boasting is inevitable. Kreelman said afterward that he never saw, at a gam, men so completely squelched as were the sailors from the Magic.
We hove to that night, as the captain said, and at dawn the crow’s nests were manned by lookouts who were instructed to seek sharply for the Magic, although whales were not to be ignored. Soon a mastheader announced the top-hamper of a distant vessel, and, before long, the two ships were in a position to gam. The Magic dropped a boat and her captain headed it. When it came alongside he leaped to the deck and shook hands with our captain. The two men, who were old friends, conversed earnestly and there was something interesting and delightful in their meeting by chance, many thousand miles from home, on a great ocean, which constitutes a pretty large part of the entire globe. The captain of the Magic wanted the last news from home, and our captain gave him what little information there was. Then Captain Gamans remarked, “Now let me tell you the latest news of this vessel. We’ve got on board a lump of ambergris that weighs three hundred pounds, and it’s well formed, too.”
“What good luck! I never saw a piece of ambergris in my life.”