"As soon as the anchor hit that whale where the apple hit the man who discovered the law of gravitation, off he dashed, and naturally the boat being fast to him, off dashed the boat, too. The line was drawn as tight as the 'G' string on a bull fiddle.
"Cap'n Peleg was standing up in the stern just ready to cast a line over, when 'bang!' the fun started. He almost went overboard, but recovered himself in time to find that he was being drawn through the water at 'sixty-'leven' miles an hour or more. He said afterward it was the fastest he'd ever traveled. The wind hit his face as if he was coasting down a forty-five grade mountainside in a runaway six-cylinder auto without brakes or windshield.
"The cap'n said that the wind blew in his face so hard that every time he tried to get to the bow of the boat to cut the line, he was blown back again. All this time he couldn't think what he was hitched to. In fact he didn't do much thinking at all. It wasn't till the whale had gone what Peleg said must have been a hundred miles or more, that it turned plum round and headed right back for his ship again.
"They made the trip in as fast time as if he'd been hitched to a runaway cyclone. As they came near the ship there was the greatest excitement on board that they'd had since they ran into a herd of sperms up in Bering Sea.
"'Come aboard, cap!' yelled the mate.
"'Can't, you're only a way station,' yells back the skipper, 'and this is the Alaskan flyer.'
"Just then, the way Cap'n Peleg told it, up comes the whale to spout. Seems funny it didn't think of doing that before, but the way Peleg told it, the creature hadn't. Anyhow, just as they were passing the ship, up comes the whale and gives an almighty sneeze. That blew the anchor out of its nose and off it goes, while Peleg takes an oar and guides the boat alongside his ship after the most exciting ride he ever had. The boat was going so fast when the whale cut loose, that he didn't need to row her alongside; all he had to do was to steer her like a launch and then he had to make two circles to reduce speed before he dared try to reach his ship.
"Peleg said that when they hoisted the boat on deck they found she had stood the trip all right, except that paint on her sides was blistered and burned by reason of the friction kicked up by the terrific pace they had traveled through the water."
The boys burst into a roar of laughter at the conclusion of this surprising anecdote. The captain's eyes twinkled.