Showing That Many Men Have Many Minds
- Kicking chapter two off, we get a rapid-fire list of impressions from the crowd about our sleeping stranger. As the title of the chapter suggests, we're dealing with a plethora of ideas here, and no one seems to be of one mind.
- Opinions about the cream-suited man range from Poor thing to Who dis? to Keep away from him to He just wants attention, so don't give him any.
- Lucky for him, the sleeping stranger has zero idea that this less-than-favorable commentary is going on around him.
- The ship is huge—carrying a dizzying array of passengers that get on and off at various ports.
- Eventually, the massive crowd breaks apart, forming groups, then trios, pairs, and finally individuals.
- The individuals constitute a cosmopolitan mass of people from all walks of life, from all over the world. No joke: Melville spends about a page listing all the different types of people he can think of—different cultures, different types of employment, different religions. All these people gather in a busy tangle of moving parts.