Flask, Captain of the Pequod's Cabin

Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table in the pequod's cabin. To their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the three harpooners were bidden to the feast. 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 domineering of the captain's table, was the entire carefree, license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows, the harpooners.