"now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make a little heap of dust of it. be this conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a head like a roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings of your last viceroy’s snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made steelkilt charlemagne, had he been born son to charlemagne’s father. but radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious.