TECHNIQUE 105 



that day; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask 

 to the deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in pri- 

 vate, that ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, 

 from that moment he had never known what it was to be other- 

 wise than hungry, more or less. For what he ate did not so 

 much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. Peace 

 and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from my 

 stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fist a bit of 

 old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was be- 

 fore the mast. There's the fruits of promotion now; there's the 

 vanity of glory: there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were 

 so that any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask 

 in Flask's official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to 

 obtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a 

 peep at Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumb- 

 foundered before awful Ahab. 



"Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called 

 the first table in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, 

 taking place in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth 

 was cleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by the 

 pallid steward. And then the three harpooneers were bidden to 

 the feast, they being its residuary legatees. They made a sort 

 of temporary servants' hall of the high and mighty cabin. 



''In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and 

 nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the 

 entire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of 

 those inferior fellows, the harpooneers. While their masters, 

 the mates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own 

 jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that 

 there was a report to it. They dined like lords; they filled their 

 bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such por- 

 tentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the 

 vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough- 

 Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly 

 quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, 

 if he did not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tash- 

 tego had an ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a 



