but one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about receiving a generous share of the profits was this: ashore, i had heard something of both captain peleg and his unaccountable old crony bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of the pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship’s affairs to these two. and i did not know but what the stingy old bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as i now found him on board the pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his bible as if at his own fireside. now while peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these proceedings; bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth—"