“Why, it’s like nothin’ but itself,” replied Tom, looking puzzled. “Why, wot a queer feller you are to ax questions.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of them. You might be able to tell what a whale is like.”
“Wot it’s like! Well, it’s like a tremendous big bolster with a head and a tail to it.”
“And how big is it?”
“They’re of all sizes, lad. I’ve seen one that was exactly equal to three hundred fat bulls, and its rate of goin’ would take it round the whole world in twenty-three days.”
“I don’t believe you,” said I, laughing.
“Don’t you?” cried Tom; “it’s a fact notwithstandin’, for the captain himself said so, and that’s how I came to know it.”
Just as Tom finished speaking, the man in the crow’s nest roared at the top of his voice, “There she blows!”
That was the signal that a whale was in sight, and as it was the first time we had heard it that season, every man in the ship was thrown into a state of tremendous excitement.
“There she blows!” roared the man again.