Damn you cats are hip!

And so Starbuck found Ahab perched atop his three legged stool, pecking the keys and pondering the screen of his Presario, his thread requesting the lyrics to Albino Cetacean Blues now becoming an all-consuming obsession, so that, despite a dearth of responses, the old man sat far into the night, wrinkling his fate-scarred brow and clicking the refresh button, oblivious to the rumble of the bilge pumps below.

"Who's there?" hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round to it. "On deck! Begone!"

"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, Sir. We must up Burtons and break out."

"Enough of your whaleman's jargon, blast you! Can't you see I'm busy? 'Up Burtons and break out'! Put it in plain English man!"

"I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir. It leaks."

" Then take ye care that ye fix the leak, Sir, and if ye intrude on me again, by Bruce O and all the Childe Ballads, I'll have ye dressed in fish-net hose and paraded before the harpooneers!"

" But what will the owners say, Sir?"

" Let the frigging owners stand on Nantucket Beach chanting the third verse of The Death of Robin Hood until Hades produces frozen Margaritas! What cares Ahab! Wait....a new post!"

Starbuck glimpsed a musket loaded and waiting in the rack. "What shall ye do, Starbuck?" he thought. " Dispatch the old man, save the voyage, and free up the computer for some late-night Sexy Site surfing?" But mastering his emotions, he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: "Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, Sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself old man."

Ahab paid Starbuck no heed, only commenting: "Damned useless post; no help, no help." Ahab's voice was alive with pain, as if he had received a blow, and for a moment Starbuck's pity stirred. "No help," said the old man, " only Catspaw asking if this is the same Cetacean that won the 1947 Kentucky Derby."

However it was, the order was executed, and the Burtons hoisted.