Read the excerpt below from Moby-Dick by Herman Melville:
"I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that if he really had no other place for me, and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man's blanket."
"I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?—you want supper? Supper 'll be ready directly."
Considering the interaction between Ishmael and the innkeeper, identify the alternative that best describes the primary social function performed by the innkeeper's utterances.