The Carpet-Bag — Moby-Dick

A shirt or two goes into the old carpet-bag, and Ishmael is off toward Cape Horn with almost nothing else to his name. New Bedford receives him on a biting December Saturday, then takes away the easy next step: the Nantucket packet has sailed, and Monday is the earliest he can reach the island whalers he insists on, even though most candidates embark from this richer port without ceremony. Two nights and a day of food and shelter now hang on a pocket he has already sounded with anxious grapnels, bringing up only a few pieces of silver.

Standing in a dreary street, shouldering the bag, he talks to himself like a friend who will not flatter: inquire the price, do not be too particular. The Crossed Harpoons looks too expensive and jolly; the Sword-Fish Inn melts snow with its red glare and tinkling glasses while his patched boots ache on ten-inch frost. He almost lingers in the doorway until his own voice tells him to move on, then drifts waterward where inns ought to be cheap if not cheerful. A careless open door promises lodging until he stumbles over an ash-box, opens an inner room, and finds a Black church mid-sermon on darkness and gnashing teeth. He names the place The Trap, backs out with a joke, and keeps walking as if a wrong room were a detour, not a verdict on the night.

Near the docks a creaking sign reads The Spouter Inn, Peter Coffin, and the pairing sounds like a warning he talks himself past because cheap pea coffee and a dim quiet house fit the purse. Euroclydon howls on the corner while he remembers Dives indoors calling it a fine frosty night and Lazarus on the curb who would rather be anywhere else than in this wind. Ishmael scrapes ice from his frosted feet at the threshold, not yet inside. What sort of bed waits behind a landlord named Coffin when you have already missed the boat and nearly walked into hell by mistake?