THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF
der. "This is simply ridiculous!" The piston went up savagely, and choked, for half the steam behind it was mixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! I 'm choking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention has such a calamity overtaken one so young and strong. And if I go, who 's to drive the ship?"
"Hush! oh, hush!" whispered the Steam, who, of course, had been to sea many times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore in a cloud, or a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder-storm, or anywhere else where water was needed. "That 's only a little priming, a little carrying-over, as they call it. It 'll happen all night, on and off. I don't say it 's nice, but it 's the best we can do under the circumstances."
"What difference can circumstances make? I 'm here to do my work—on clean, dry steam. Blow circumstances!" the cylinder roared.
"The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I 've worked on the North Atlantic run a good many times—it 's going to be rough before morning."
"It is n't distressingly calm now," said the extra-strong frames—they were called web-frames—in the engine-room. "There 's an upward thrust that we don't understand, and there 's a twist that is very bad for our brackets and diamond -plates, and there 's a sort of west-northwesterly pull, that follows the twist, which seriously annoys us. We mention this because we happened to cost a good deal of money, and we feel sure that the owner would not approve of our being treated in this frivolous way."
[90]
