“What has he in his hand there?” cried Starbuck, pointing to something wavingly held by the German. “Impossible!⁠—a lamp-feeder!”

“Not that,” said Stubb, “no, no, it’s a coffeepot, Mr. Starbuck; he’s coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don’t you see that big tin can there alongside of him?⁠—that’s his boiling water. Oh! he’s all right, is the Yarman.”

“Go along with you,” cried Flask, “it’s a lamp-feeder and an oilcan. He’s out of oil, and has come a-begging.”

However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare.