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 meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old ahab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. what a relief it was to choking stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. and poor little flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family party. his were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have been the drumsticks. for flask to have presumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless, strange to say, ahab never forbade him. and had flask helped himself, the chances were ahab had never so much as noticed it.