 up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was badly jammed in point
of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him; and yet they also have
the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher
than Flask, happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms of
concluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will not get more than
three mouthfuls that day; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede
Flask to the deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that
ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had
never known what it was to be otherwise 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 forever 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 before 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 skylight, sitting silly and dumfoundered 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 licence
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 portentous appetites had
Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out
