Alas! Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter
who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on his arm,
but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight,
the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous,
fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them
at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.
But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally
lived there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits,
they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just
before sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their
own peculiar quarters.
In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American
whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion
that by rights the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by
courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there.
So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might
more properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than in it.
For when they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoor
enters a house; turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned
out the next; and, as a permanent thing, residing in the open air.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262