Lousy analogy, Queequueg. Your slavish support of an oppressive regime does you no honor. A better metaphor: you wield a harpoon for a demented master, stumping the quarterdeck in the dawn watch with his pegleg, and muttering over and over his private curses on the White Whale. You may somehow survive the collapse of the Pequod, floating off on a surplus coffin. But that's as far as it goes. You and your beloved leader have trafficked in death, and it is on your hands ineradicably, perfume it how you may.


A