the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself,
in order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before
the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg
should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself,
he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs,
and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks
the tepid tears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is
plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet,
and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" may be.



CHAPTER 3

The Spouter-Inn



Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself
in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots,
reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft.
On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked,
and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which
you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of
systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors,
that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose.