“Hast seen the White Whale?” gritted Ahab in reply. “No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all,” said the other good-humoredly. “Come aboard!” “Thou are too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?” “Not enough to speak of - two islanders, that's all; - but come aboard.” Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, (chap. 115) “It warn't the grounding - that didn't keep us back but a little. We We blowed out a cylinder-head.” “Good gracious! anybody hurt?” “No'm. Killed a nigger.” “Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.” Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, (chap. 32) The second of these passages, too familiar to require much commentary, is frequently instanced as a dramatic rendering of much that is noteworthy about Huckleberry Finn:The centrality to the novel's purpose of questions of racial prejudice; the transparent irony disclosed in Aunt Sally's anxious question and her genuine relief that no “people” were injured; the canniness of Huck himself, who, though perplexed by this sudden relative who calls him “Tom,” knows enough about human nature to invent yet another fictional experience and adopt yet another persona on the instant, but is totally unaware of the satire, irony, or humor of his own remark.