“I’m sorry there ar’n’t any whales,” said Tom. “How long might they be, say the biggest you ever see?”
“Oh!” said the sailor, “they mostly runs thirty or forty foot long, but I saw one once nearly eighty-foot.”
“What a whopper!” said Tom, giving me a droll look.
“Sounds big,” said the sailor, “but out here in the ocean, my lad, seventy or eighty-foot only seems to be a span long, and no size at all, while the biggest shark I ever see—”
“How long was that?” said Tom; “a hundred foot?”
“No,” said the sailor drily; “he was eighteen-foot long—a long, thin, hungry-looking fellow, with a mouth and jaws that would have taken off one of your legs like a shot.”
“Well, but if an eighty-foot whale don’t look big,” said Tom, “an eighteen-foot shark must be quite a shrimp.”
“Ah! you wouldn’t think so,” said the sailor quietly, “if you were overboard and one of ’em after you.”
“But I thought you’d got monsters out here at sea,” said Tom, giving me another of his cunning looks, as much as to say, “You see how I’ll lead him on directly.”
“So we have,” said the sailor, staring straight out before him, “only it don’t do to talk about ’em.”