not the least among the strange things bred by the intense
artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck
some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and
defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those
very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that
same commander's cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say
deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of
the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this
difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of
Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously,
therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he
who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own
private dinner-table of invited guests, that man's unchallenged power
and dominion of individual influence for the time; that man's royalty of
state transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who
has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar. It
is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. Now,
if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a
ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that
peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned.

Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned
sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still
deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be
served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab,
there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind,
their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved
the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they
would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even
upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his
knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby
motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate received his meat as
though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little started
if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed it
noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like
the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly
dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were
somehow solemn