midday
Among the most vivid memories of my life are those of the events on the _ Ghost _ which occurred during the forty hours succeeding the discovery of my love for Maud Brewster . I , who had lived my life in quiet places , only to enter at the age of thirty-five upon a course of the most irrational adventure I could have imagined , never had more incident and excitement crammed into any forty hours of my experience . Nor can I quite close my ears to a small voice of pride which tells me I did not do so badly , all things considered . To begin with , at the midday dinner , Wolf Larsen informed the hunters that they were to eat thenceforth in the steerage . It was an unprecedented thing on sealing-schooners , where it is the custom for the hunters to rank , unofficially as officers . He gave no reason , but his motive was obvious enough . Horner and Smoke had been displaying a gallantry toward Maud Brewster , ludicrous in itself and inoffensive to her , but to him evidently distasteful .