I quickly got dressed and went downstairs to the bar-room. When I saw the landlord, I greeted him with a smile. I wasn’t angry with him, even though he had played quite a joke on me the night before by putting me in bed with Queequeg.
After all, a good laugh is a wonderful thing, and there isn’t nearly enough laughter in the world. If someone happens to become the subject of a harmless joke, he shouldn’t take it too seriously. He should be willing to laugh along with everyone else.
And if a man has something naturally funny about him, don’t assume he has nothing else to offer. There is usually much more to such a person than meets the eye.
By now, the bar-room was crowded with the guests who had arrived the night before. I hadn’t really had a chance to look at them until then.
Almost all of them were whalemen. There were chief mates, second mates, third mates, ship carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, harpooneers, and sailors who looked after the ships.
They were a rough, powerful-looking group. Their faces were dark from the sun, their bodies were strong, and most of them had thick, untrimmed beards. They were all dressed in heavy sailor’s jackets as if those were perfectly respectable morning clothes.
You could almost tell how recently each man had returned from sea just by looking at his face.
One young man had cheeks the color of a pear baked in the sun. He couldn’t have been back from his voyage to India for more than a few days.
The man beside him was a little lighter, as though the deep tropical tan were already beginning to fade.
Another still had the rich brown color of the tropics, though it had started to disappear. He had probably been ashore for several weeks.
But no one had a face quite like Queequeg’s.
His skin seemed to carry several different shades at once. Looking at him reminded me of the western slopes of the Andes, where different climates appear one above another as the land rises from one region to the next.
“Breakfast!” the landlord suddenly shouted, throwing open a door.
We all went inside.
People often say that men who have traveled around the world become confident and comfortable in any company. I’m not sure that’s always true.
Take Ledyard, the famous New England traveler, or Mungo Park, the great Scottish explorer. Neither of them was especially confident in polite society.
Perhaps traveling across Siberia in a dog sled, as Ledyard did, or walking alone through the heart of Africa on an empty stomach, as Mungo Park once did, isn’t the best way to learn good manners.
Still, traveling usually teaches a person something about the world, even if it doesn’t teach him how to behave at a breakfast table.
I mention this because something very strange happened once we were all seated.
I had expected to hear plenty of exciting stories about whales. Instead, almost everyone sat in complete silence.
Even stranger, they seemed embarrassed.
These were men who had faced enormous whales in the middle of the ocean without the slightest fear. They had climbed onto the backs of creatures many times larger than themselves and fought them to the death.
Yet here they were, sitting around a breakfast table with other men from exactly the same profession, and they could hardly look at one another.
They glanced around awkwardly, like shy country boys who had never been farther from home than their own sheep pasture.
It was a remarkable sight.
These tough sailors, these fearless hunters of whales, had suddenly become as timid as bears afraid to come out of their caves.
Queequeg, however, was completely different.
He happened to be sitting at the head of the table, and he looked as calm as if he were sitting alone in his own home.
I can’t say he had perfect table manners.
Even his greatest admirer would have had trouble defending his decision to bring his harpoon to breakfast.
He simply used it as though it were an ordinary dining utensil. He reached across the table with it, putting several people’s heads in danger, and pulled beefsteaks toward himself with the hook.
And yet he did it with such complete calmness that no one seemed able to object.
There’s something about doing a strange thing confidently. People often mistake confidence for good manners.
I won’t go into all of Queequeg’s unusual habits.
He refused the coffee and hot rolls and devoted himself almost entirely to rare beefsteaks.
When breakfast was finished, he joined the other men in the public room.
He lit his tomahawk-shaped pipe and sat there quietly, smoking and digesting his meal. As usual, he still had his strange hat firmly on his head.
After watching him for a while, I went outside for a walk.