THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF
"We believe you, my boy!" whistled the funnel-stays through their clinched teeth, as they twanged in the wind from, the top of the funnel to the deck.
"Nonsense! We must all pull together," the decks repeated. "Pull lengthways."
"Very good," said the stringers; "then stop pushing sideways when you get wet. Be content to run gracefully fore and aft, and curve in at the ends as we do."
"No—no curves at the end. A very slight workmanlike curve from side to side, with a good grip at each knee, and little pieces welded on," said the deck-beams.
"Fiddle!" cried the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. "Who ever heard of curves? Stand up straight; be a perfectly round column, and carry tons of good solid weight—like that! There!" A big sea smashed on the deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the load.
"Straight up and down is not bad," said the frames, who ran that way in the sides of the ship, "but you must also expand yourselves sideways. Expansion is the law of life, children. Open out! open out!"
"Come back! " said the deck-beams, savagely, as the upward heave of the sea made the frames try to open.
"Come back to your bearings, you slack-jawed irons!"
"Rigidity! Rigidity! Rigidity!" thumped the engines. " Absolute, unvarying rigidity—rigidity!"
"You see!" whined the rivets, in chorus. "No two of you will ever pull alike, and—and you blame it all on us. We only know how to go through a plate and bite down on both sides so that it can't, and must n't, and sha'n't move."
[96]
