When he had done
there was a general howl of laughter, and they began to cap lies with
him, and so they bantered him most cruelly, by all accounts; but at
last a long silent chap, weather-beaten to the color of rosewood, put
in his word.
"'What was the ship's name, mate?'
"'The _Connemara_,' says he.
"'And what is your name?' So he told him, 'Jem Green.'
"The other brings a great mutton fist down on the table, and makes all
the glasses dance. 'You stay at your moorings till I come back,' says
he. 'I have got something belonging to you, Jem Green,' and he sheered
off. The others lay to and passed the grog. Presently the long one
comes back with a harpoon steel in his hand; there was
_Connemara_ stamped on it, and also 'James Green' graved with a
knife. 'Is that yours?' 'Is my hand mine?' says Jem; 'but wasn't there
a broken shaft to it!"
"'There was,' says the Yankee harpooner; 'I cut it out.'
"'Well!' says Jem, 'that is the harpoon we were fast by to this very
whale. Where did you kill her?'
"'In the Greenland seas.' And he whips out his private log. 'Here you
are,' says he; 'March 25, 1820, latitude so and so, killed a right
whale; lost half the blubber, owing to the carcass sinking; cut an
English harpoon out of her.'
"'Avast there, mate!' cried Jem, and he whips, out _his_ log;
'overhaul that.' The other harpooner overhauled it. 'Mates, look,
here,' says he; 'I reckon we hain't fathomed the critters yet. The
Britisher struck her in the Pacific on the 5th of March, and we killed
her off Greenland on the 25th, five thousand miles of water by the
lowest reckoning.
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