{"id":"01KJNXJQX2NXFYN6QCZX6ADKX8","cid":"bafkreifslfc5wtxf2r7a7jgmwoj7r3lfopn7urb2wginu57snu37przine","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":349764,"char_start":341855,"chunk_index":48,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1978,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab\r\nthereby motioned Starbuck’s plate towards him, the mate received his\r\nmeat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little\r\nstarted if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed\r\nit noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like\r\nthe Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor\r\nprofoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals\r\nwere somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old\r\nAhab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief\r\nit was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold\r\nbelow. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy\r\nof this weary family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef;\r\nhis would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help\r\nhimself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the\r\nfirst degree. Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never\r\nmore would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world;\r\nnevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask\r\nhelped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it.\r\nLeast of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he\r\nthought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on account of its\r\nclotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so\r\nlong a voyage in such marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and\r\ntherefore was not for him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas!\r\nwas a butterless man!\r\n\r\nAnother thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask\r\nis the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask’s dinner was badly\r\njammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him;\r\nand yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb\r\neven, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small\r\nappetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask\r\nmust bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that\r\nday; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the\r\ndeck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever\r\nsince he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he\r\nhad never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less.\r\nFor what he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal\r\nin him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed\r\nfrom my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of\r\nold-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before\r\nthe mast. There’s the fruits of promotion now; there’s the vanity of\r\nglory: there’s the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any\r\nmere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask’s\r\nofficial capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample\r\nvengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask\r\nthrough the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before\r\nawful Ahab.\r\n\r\nNow, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table\r\nin the Pequod’s cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted\r\norder to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was\r\nrestored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the\r\nthree harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary\r\nlegatees. They made a sort of temporary servants’ hall of the high and\r\nmighty cabin.\r\n\r\nIn strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless\r\ninvisible domineerings of the captain’s table, was the entire care-free\r\nlicense and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior\r\nfellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid\r\nof the sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed\r\ntheir food with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined\r\nlike lords; they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading\r\nwith spices. Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that\r\nto fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale\r\nDough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly\r\nquarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he\r\ndid not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an\r\nungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back,\r\nharpoon-wise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted\r\nDough-Boy’s memory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head\r\ninto a great empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand,\r\nbegan laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was\r\nnaturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this\r\nbread-faced steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital\r\nnurse. And what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab,\r\nand the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages,\r\nDough-Boy’s whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after\r\nseeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he\r\nwould escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and\r\nfearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all was\r\nover.\r\n\r\nIt was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing\r\nhis filed teeth to the Indian’s: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on\r\nthe floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the\r\nlow carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low\r\ncabin framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in\r\na ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious,\r\nnot to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively\r\nsmall mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so\r\nbroad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage\r\nfed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through\r\nhis dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by\r\nbeef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a\r\nmortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating—an ugly sound enough—so\r\nmuch so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any\r\nmarks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear\r\nTashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might\r\nbe picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery\r\nhanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor\r\ndid the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for\r\ntheir lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner,\r\nthey would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did\r\nnot at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget\r\nthat in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been\r\nguilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! Dough-Boy!\r\nhard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin\r\nshould he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his\r\ngreat delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to\r\nhis credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling\r\nin them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.\r\n\r\nBut, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived\r\nthere; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were\r\nscarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time,\r\nwhen they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters.\r\n\r\nIn this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale\r\ncaptains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights\r\nthe ship’s cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that\r\nanybody else is, at any time, permitted there."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKV9JR5QVCDKHMH41830J","peer_label":"flask","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXN7GN4F2X5JABPVCPAW8P","peer_label":"harpooneers","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXNA6Q7NV244AJQKVXKZ","peer_label":"queequeg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV8861P977B7BE45JR4K","peer_label":"daggoo","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV94RQAJGYF0Y1PBZWSW","peer_label":"tashtego","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM3Y01SQ5YR3EQNR1GG38","peer_label":"dough-boy","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNHA54GN64GNFZXG7AEGW","peer_label":"frankfort coronation banquet","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"historical_event","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFDV6KKD29980TYAX8ET","peer_label":"american whale captains","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ27M9HH7FRYV1KCXG0ZG","peer_label":"first table","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"dining_arrangement","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ2791VD92XMPAJHAVQCY","peer_label":"pequods cabin","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_area","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ279ZEDYSDNPS0RGAR9F","peer_label":"german emperor","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ2FWMR0298WFG5TM81WN","peer_label":"forecastle","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_area","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFP6E99ZMET21Z4SMM1X","peer_label":"cabin meals","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event_type","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ2GF2KCWXW2BGJX4JTYE","peer_label":"imperial electors","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXR7Z74WTCY1X5MWS11KEX","peer_label":"baron of salt-junk","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"food_item","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQS31BK9FQ8ZG3ZX3QMEV","peer_label":"wooden trencher","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"object","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQW4CHEWJTGSEGXX7M2VX","peer_label":"whetstones","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:48.963Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.682Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:07:52.574Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}