"Tell that for anybody to believe it, Cooper?" asked Old Jeff. "I can't get up tackles enough to h'ist in the yard. It's heavier than that junk was."
"Took the gauges of every cask myself," said the cooper.
"Must be you made a mistake in addin' on 'em up. How long was that whale, now, on a guess?"
"Well, I don't know; the Bajazet was a ship of three hundred and fifty tons, about the length of this one, I suppose; we brought the fluke-chain in at the hawse hole, and hauled it short up and down, and the mate had his cutting-stage over the stern to cut around the nib end; the head worked in under the counter sometimes and bothered him!"
"And did ye's have much throuble to kill that chap?" asked Farrell.
"None at all; laid like an island, you might have thrown a whole blacksmith's shop into him."
"Do they often get whales as easily as we got this one to-day?" I inquired.
"Yes, a great many are taken as easy as that. But not always, as you'll find out by and by; for there's all kinds of manœuvres with whales, and hardly any two of 'em will act just alike."
"Did you ever see any very bad ones taken?" I inquired.
"Well—no—not very bad," returned the cooper, evasively; for, much as he felt disposed to draw the long bow on this sonorous string, he was by no means regardless of the interest of the voyage, and well knew the bad policy of telling frightful yarns to green hands concerning fighting whales. It would be time enough for that when they had acquired some experience, and seen a few ugly whales themselves. He was not to be drawn out on this subject.