but what is this on the chest? i took it up, and held it close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. i can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an indian moccasin. there was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in south american ponchos. but could it be possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the streets of any christian town in that sort of guise? i put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and i thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. i went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and i never saw such a sight in my life. i tore myself out of it in such a hurry that i gave myself a kink in the neck.