The case-bucket was then made fast to the line running through the block at the yardarm. The case-bucket looks not unlike an old-fashioned fire-bucket with a bulging bottom, except that old fire-buckets were made of leather, and the case-bucket was of wood, bound about with as many hoops as the old oaken bucket. Wright took his place at the gangway, with a wooden pole in his hands nearly twenty feet long. With this pole he pushed the bucket down, and a bucketful of the mushy contents of the case, consisting of oil and shreds of half-solidified spermaceti, plopped into it. It was then drawn up by men {88} on the other end of the line, and emptied into a butt. As many men as could get at the open end of the well of oil were bailing with anything they could lay their hands to, the long-handled copper dippers for dipping oil out of the try-pots, buckets, tin pails without long handles. When the level of oil was lowered, the dippers without long handles became useless, of course, but the copper dippers could be used for some time. When these came up nearly empty the case-bucket worked alone. At last the long pole in Wright’s hands had been pushed down for nearly its whole length, to the bottom of the well and the case-bucket would bring up no more oil. There was still some at the bottom of the well, however, and Black Man’el, stripped to a ragged old pair of overalls, went down with the bucket. He disappeared in the black cavern. We could see nothing of him, but the bucket made more than one trip before it brought him up again. He was a sight to see, dripping oil everywhere, his tightly curling hair full of it and of soft, silky shreds of spermaceti. I laughed at him, saying that it was my turn to laugh; but he only showed all his white teeth, replying that he liked it, and that the oil kept him warm and “soopled” him, and recommending it to me. I could understand that it might be pleasant to bathe in oil, in case-oil, for it had an agreeable smell, faintly like that of milk as it foams in the buckets; but I could not have stood getting my hair full of it. [Illustration: BAILING CASE]