To which I reply, "Tom, can it all be true?" "Can wot be true?" says he, with a stare of surprise-for Tom is getting into his dotage now. And then I chuckle and tell him I was only thinking of old times, and so he falls to smoking again, and I to staring at the fire, and thinking as hard as ever. The way in which I was first led to go after the whales was curious. This is how it happened.