"How long was he, then?"
"About sixty-five feet."
"Do you ever really get them eighty feet long?"
"Oh, yes. I've killed whales ninety feet long."
"I've seen 'em a hundred feet long," volunteered the man who was mincing the blubber.
"I've know'd 'em to be a hundred and twenty feet long in the Indian Ocean," put in another, lifting a pile of minced blubber on a four-tined fork, and tossing it into a kettle.
"Whales is ketched a hundred and fifty feet long," said a solemn-looking man, who stood leaning on the handle of his blubber-spade just outside the shed.
A little silence fell upon the group, which Mr. Ketchum was the first to break, again addressing the man at the kettle, asking him:
"How much oil will you get out of this one?"
"About eighty bar'ls, I guess."