irections, to hold me steady. Is n't that so?"

"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 shan't move."

"I've got one-fraction of an inch play, at any rate," said the
garboard-strake, triumphantly. So he had, and all the bottom of the
ship felt the easier for it.

"Then we're no good," sobbed the bottom rivets. "We were ordered--we
were ordered--never to give; and we've given, and the sea will come
in, and we'll all go to the bottom together! First we're blamed for
everything unpleasant, and now we have n't the consolation of having
done our work."

"Don't say I told you," whispered the Steam, consolingly; "but,
between you and me and the last cloud I came from, it was bound to
happen sooner or later. You _had_ to give a fraction, and you've given
without knowing it. Now, hold on, as before."

"What's the use?" a few hundred rivets chattered. "We've given--we've
given; and the sooner we confess that we can't keep the ship together,
and go off our little heads, the easier it