The fine, three-topmast schooner¹ Ariel, on a cruise around the world, had already been out a year from San Francisco when Jerry boarded her.  As a world, and as a white-god world, she was to him beyond compare.  She was not small like the Arangi, nor was she cluttered² fore³ and aft, on deck and below, with a spawn⁴ of niggers.  The only black Jerry found on her was Johnny; while her spaciousness⁵ was filled principally with two-legged white-gods.  
He met them everywhere, at the wheel, on lookout⁶, washing decks, polishing brass-work, running aloft, or tailing on to sheets and tackles half a dozen at a time.  But there was a difference.  There were gods and gods, and Jerry was not long in learning that in the hierarchy⁷ of the heaven of these white-gods on the Ariel, the sailorizing, ship-working ones were far beneath the captain and his two white-and-gold-clad officers.  These, in turn, were less than Harley Kennan and Villa⁸ Kennan; for them, it came quickly to him, Harley Kennan commanded.  Nevertheless, there was one thing he did not learn and was destined⁹ never to learn, namely, the supreme¹⁰ god over all on the Ariel.  Although he never tried to know, being unable to think to such a distance, he never came to know whether it was Harley Kennan who commanded Villa, or Villa Kennan who commanded Harley.  In a way, without vexing¹¹ himself with the problem, he accepted their over-lordship of the world as dual¹².  Neither out-ranked the other.  They seemed to rule co-equal, while all others bowed before them.
 
It is not true that to feed a dog is to win a dog’s heart.  Never did Harley or Villa feed Jerry; yet it was to them he elected to belong, them he elected to love and serve rather than to the Japanese steward¹³ who regularly fed him.  For that matter, Jerry, like any dog, was able to differentiate¹⁴ between the mere¹⁵ direct food-giver and the food source.  That is, subconsciously¹⁶, he was aware that not alone his own food, but the food of all on board found its source in the man and woman.  They it was who fed all and ruled all.  Captain Winters might give orders to the sailors, but Captain Winters took orders from Harley Kennan.  Jerry knew this as indubitably as he acted upon it, although all the while it never entered his head as an item of conscious knowledge.
 
And, as he had been accustomed, all his life, as with Mister Haggin, Skipper, and even with Bashti and the chief devil devil doctor of Somo, he attached himself to the high gods themselves, and from the gods under them received deference¹⁷ accordingly.  As Skipper, on the Arangi, and Bashti in Somo, had promulgated¹⁸ taboos¹⁹, so the man and the woman on the Ariel protected Jerry with taboos.  From Sano, the Japanese steward, and from him alone, did Jerry receive food.  Not from any sailor in whaleboat or launch could he accept, or would he be offered, a bit of biscuit or an invitation to go ashore²⁰ for a run.  Nor did they offer it.  Nor were they permitted to become intimate, to the extent of romping²¹ and playing with him, nor even of whistling to him along the deck.
 
By nature a “one-man” dog, all this was very acceptable to Jerry.  Differences of degree there were, of course; but no one more delicately and definitely knew those differences than did Jerry himself.  Thus, it was permissible²² for the two officers to greet him with a “Hello,” or a “Good morning,” and even to touch a hand in a brief and friendly pat to his head.  With Captain Winters, however, greater familiarity obtained.  Captain Winters could rub his ears, shake hands with his, scratch his back, and even roughly catch him by the jowls.  But Captain Winters invariably surrendered him up when the one man and the one woman appeared on deck.
 
When it came to liberties, delicious, wanton liberties, Jerry alone of all on board could take them with the man and woman, and, on the other hand, they were the only two to whom he permitted liberties.  Any indignity²³ that Villa Kennan chose............