if he had ever had one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers.  He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful, multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior—­ though a little swelled—­of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers.  So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of him, and the screw was fast:  or if for tweezers, take him up by the legs, and there they were.

Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton.  If he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously did its duty.  What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling.  But there it was; and there it had abided for now some sixty years or more.  And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake.

CHAPTER 108

Ahab and the Carpenter

The Deck — First Night Watch

(Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the vice.  Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench.  Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work.)

Drat the file, and drat the bone!  That is hard which should be soft, and that is soft which should be hard.  So we go, who file old jaws and shin bones.  Let’s try another.  Aye, now, this works better (sneezes).  Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)—­why it’s (sneezes)—­yes it’s (sneezes)—­bless my soul, it won’t let me speak!  This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber.  Saw a live tree, and you don’t get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don’t get it (sneezes).  Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let’s have that ferrule and buckle-screw; I’ll be ready for them presently.  Lucky now (sneezes) there’s no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; but a mere shin-bone—­why it’s easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on.  Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor.  Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I’ve seen in shop windows wouldn’t compare at all.  They soak water, they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions, just like live legs.  There; before I saw it off, now, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess.  Ha! that’s the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it’s somebody else, that’s certain.  AHAB (advancing)