, and, after a grave peep
into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, »Dinner, Mr. Stubb,«
and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging a while, and
then slightly shaking the main-brace, to see whether it be all right with that
important rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid »Dinner,
Mr. Flask,« follows after his predecessors.
    But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, seems
to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all sorts of knowing
winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a
sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head; and
then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizen-top for a
shelf, he goes down rollicking, so far at least as he remains visible from the
deck, reversing all other processions by bringing up the rear with music. But
ere stepping into the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face
altogether, and then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's
presence, in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.
    It is 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
toward 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 toward 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 Cæsar. It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no
withstanding. Now, if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy
of a shipmaster, then, by inference, you will
