This was the first time I ever beheld him in evening dress, and he astonished me; because a very old hat had always been part of his equipment. He may have contrived to leave it somewhere, for he cannot have come with a good one. Neither was that the only thing in his present appearance amazing; for he had put himself into a black velvet coat, as the smartest thing he could find in his trunk; and grand, I can tell you, he looked in it. From daybreak until he had to go and wash, he had been at work at that great whale, not only directing a mob of clod-hoppers, how to hop about upon a whale, but also, with his own iron arms, performing all work that called for skill and strength. And yet, there was no sign of work about him; neither any talk, or thought of work; and he would not be made (though Lady Twentifold tried her best to make him, and so did Sir Roland with downright "fishers"--as we used to call tapping a master at school, to do a hard sentence for us), by no manner of means could he be brought to speak, as if he wanted to be listened to. This was the very thing that I had known, ever since he first came, with the other four Professors. Of them there was not one that would leave off talking, for the sake of the public, or of one another, or even for his own sake; neither would they breathe enough, to let another voice in; but the measure of every man's mind was his lungs. And to countervail this, it has been laid down by nature, that the men who have something to say don't say it. But, though this Professor, in his leisure time, would play round the edge of his learning, rather than plunge other people into it; it was quite impossible for even me (a careless, and light-headed boy) to be with him, without learning something. And my firm belief is, that although I know very little, at this time of writing, whatever I have learned of larger things than little human creatures, was gained upon that whale, where the great mind came to study the great body. CHAPTER XIII. WHALEBONES. My dear mother always says, and allows no contradiction about it, that this whale, being all bones and blubber, had no right whatever to come ashore there, and to set me against my father's trade. She declares that all science is full of smells, a thousand times worse than we make; and that all their fuss about drains is just, that they may get themselves cleaned up, for nothing. All the people before her, in generation, lived to be ninety, without any drain upon them; except her own parents, and why did they die? Why, because there was a drain carried through their garden; and the smell came in, and choked them!