it was a sight to see queequeg seated over against tashtego, opposing his filed teeth to the indian’s: crosswise to them, daggoo seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when an african elephant goes passenger in a ship. but for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. it seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a person. but, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. but queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating—an ugly sound enough—so much so, that the trembling dough-boy almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. and when he would hear tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. nor did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not at all tend to tranquillize poor dough-boy. how could he forget that in his island days, queequeg, for one, must certainly have been guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions. alas! dough-boy!