HEAD OF THE HOUSE


For years Ishmael was unable to remember that evening without a tingling
sense of shame. The unwonted excitement, combined with the prominence
which the Parson successfully achieved for him, went to his head and
caused him to "show off." The thought of how he had chattered and
boasted, talking very loudly and clumping with his feet when he walked,
so as to sound and feel like a grown-up man, would turn him hot for
years, when, in the watches of the night, it flashed back on him. Long
after everyone else had forgotten, even if they had ever noticed it, his
lack of self-control on that evening was a memory of shame to him. He
clattered across to his place at the head of the table, and was
mortified that a couple of big old calf-bound books had to be placed on
his chair to make him sit high enough. Phoebe and the Parson were at
either side, and the foot of the table was taken by Annie, Archelaus,
defiant and monosyllabic, on her left, and Lawyer Tonkin, glossy with
black broadcloth, on her right. The lawyer had a haunting air as of
cousinship to things ecclesiastical, and, indeed, he was lay-preacher at
a Penzance chapel. Tom, who had taken care to set himself on his other
hand, kept a careful eye for his plate and glass, being particularly
liberal with the cider. The lawyer spoke little; when he did his voice
was rich and unctuous--the sort of voice that Ishmael always described
to himself as "porky." He was as attentive to Mrs. Ruan's wants as Tom
to his, and she, never a great talker save in her outbursts, still kept
up a spasmodic flow of low-toned remarks to him, whom of all men she
held in highest veneration.

His spiritual powers she rated far higher than those of the Parson, who