...No man prefers to sleep two in a bed unless it be with a woman. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother, especially were he younger and prone to dampening the mattress at night. I don't know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping alone. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore, which isn't saying much when you think about it. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin, unless the cabin boy be comely.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest, wore he any at all. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards, especially as I would be sharing him. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight - how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?