THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF
"Yes, indeed. But there 's more than engines to a ship. Every inch of her, ye 'll understand, has to be livened up and made to work wi' its neighbour—sweetenin' her, we call it, technically."
"And how will you do it?" the girl asked.
"We can no more than drive and steer her and so forth; but if we have rough weather this trip—it 's likely— she 'll learn the rest by heart! For a ship, ye 'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid body closed at both ends. She 's a highly complex structure o' various an' conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' to her personal modulus of elasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief engineer, was coming towards them. "I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our little Dimbula has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale will do it. How 's all wi' your engines, Buck?"
"Well enough—true by plumb an' rule, o’ course; but there 's no spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss Frazier, and maybe ye 'll comprehend later; even after a pretty girl 's christened a ship it does not follow that there 's such a thing as a ship under the men that work her."
"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted.
"That 's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier, laughing.
"Why so? Ye 're good Scotch, an'—I knew your mother's father, he was fra' Dumfries—ye 've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier, just as ye have in the Dimbula," the engineer said.
[85]
