For he would make himself into four or five suns at once , or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire , and stick himself in the middle of them , and wink at the fairies ; and I daresay they were very much amused ; for anything 's fun in the country . And there the good whales lay , the happy sleepy beasts , upon the still oily sea . They were all right whales , you must know , and finners , and razor-backs , and bottle-noses , and spotted sea - unicorns with long ivory horns . But the sperm whales are such raging , ramping , roaring , rumbustious fellows , that , if Mother Carey let them in , there would be no more peace in Peacepool . So she packs them away in a great pond by themselves at the South Pole , two hundred and sixty-three miles south-south-east of Mount Erebus , the great volcano in the ice ; and there they butt each other with their ugly noses , day and night from year 's end to year 's end . But here there were only good quiet beasts , lying about like the black hulls of sloops , and blowing every now and then jets of white steam , or sculling round with their huge mouths open , for the sea - moths to swim down their throats . There were no threshers there to thresh their poor old backs , or sword-fish to stab their stomachs , or saw-fish to rip them up , or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides , or whalers to harpoon and lance them . They were quite safe and happy there ; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool , till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of old beasts into new . Tom swam up to the nearest whale , and asked the way to Mother Carey . `` There she sits in the middle , '' said the whale . Tom looked ; but he could see nothing in the middle of the pool , but one peaked iceberg : and he said so . `` That 's Mother Carey , '' said the whale , `` as you will find when you get to her . There she sits making old beasts into new all the year round . '' `` How does she do that ? '' `` That 's her concern , not mine , '' said the old whale ; and yawned so wide -LRB- for he was very large -RRB- that there swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths , 13,846 jelly-fish no bigger than pins ' heads , a string of salpae nine yards long , and forty-three little ice-crabs , who gave each other a parting pinch all round , tucked their legs under their stomachs , and determined to die decently , like Julius Caesar . `` I suppose , '' said Tom , `` she cuts up a great whale like you into a whole shoal of porpoises ? '' At which the old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all the creatures ; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped out of that terrible whalebone net of his , from which bourne no traveller returns ; and Tom went on to the iceberg , wondering . And , when he came near it , it took the form of the grandest old lady he had ever seen -- a white marble lady , sitting on a white marble throne . And from the foot of the throne there swum away , out and out into the sea , millions of new-born creatures , of more shapes and colours than man ever dreamed . And they were Mother Carey 's children , whom she makes out of the sea-water all day long .
He expected , of course -- like some grown people who ought to know better -- XXXXX find her snipping , piecing , fitting , stitching , cobbling , basting , filing , planing , hammering , turning , polishing , moulding , measuring , chiselling , clipping , and so forth , as men do when they go to work to make anything .
At For So by from if out to under upon