"Hey? I don't know, maybe so. Cabbage heads it ought to have been, 'cordin' to my notion. Well, anyhow, 'twas some kind of Europe heads, and they had all pretty nigh broke the necks belongin' to 'em gettin' to see this whale, and how lucky we was because we could see it for the small sum of twenty-five cents, and so on, and so on--until all hands of us was just kind of on tiptoe, as you might say. And then, all to once, the water in the tank kind of riz up, you know, and somethin' white--might have been the broadside of a barn for all we had time to see of it--showed for a jiffy, there was a 'Woosh,' and the white thing went under again.' And that was all. The man said we was now able to tell our children that we'd seen a white whale and that the critter would be up to breathe again in about an hour, or week after next, or some such time.... Anyhow, what I'm tryin' to get at is that 'twan't the whale itself that counted so much as 'twas the way that preachin' man led up to him. This Egbert he's been preached about and guessed about and looked for'ard to so long that all Bayport's been on tiptoe, like us folks around that museum tank.... Well, this Phillips whale has made a big 'Woosh' in town so fur. Can he keep it up? That's what I'm wonderin'." The sensation kept up for the next day and the next at least, and there were no signs of its abating. Over at the Fair Harbor Captain Sears found himself playing a very small second fiddle. Miss Snowden, Mrs. Brackett and their following, instead of putting themselves out to smile upon the captain and to chat with him, ignored him almost altogether, or, if they did speak, spoke only of Mr. Phillips. He was the most entertaining man, _so_ genteel, his conversation was remarkable, he had traveled everywhere. Mrs. Berry, of course, was in ecstasies concerning him. He was her ideal of a gentleman, she said, _so_ aristocratic. "So like the men I associated with in the old days," she said. "Of course," she added, "he is an old friend. Dear 'Belia and he were my dearest friends, you know, Captain Kendrick." The captain was curious to learn Elizabeth's opinion of him. He found that opinion distinctly favorable. "He is different," she said. "Different, I mean, from any one I ever met. And at first I thought him conceited. But he isn't really, he is just--well, different. I think I shall like him." Sears smiled. "If you don't you will be rather lonesome here in the Harbor, I judge," he observed. She looked at him quickly. "You don't like him, do you, Cap'n Kendrick?" she said. "Why?" "Why--why, I don't say I don't like him, Elizabeth." "No, you don't say it, but you look it. I didn't think you took sudden dislikes, Cap'n. It doesn't seem like you, somehow." He could not explain, and he felt that he had disappointed her. On the third day the news came that Mr. Phillips had left town, gone suddenly, so Judah said.