is _the_ thing. Purr--purr--practically, there has to be a
little give and take. _We_ found that out by working on our sides for
five minutes at a stretch--chch--chh. How's the weather?"

"Sea's going down fast," said the steam.

"Good business," said the high-pressure cylinder. "Whack her up along,
boys. They've given us five pounds more steam;" and he began humming
the first bars of "Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah," which,
as you must have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not made for
high speed. Racing liners with twin screws sing "The Turkish Patrol"
and the overture to the "Bronze Horse" and "Madame Angot," till
something goes wrong, and then they give Gounod's "Funeral March of a
Marionette" with variations.

"You'll learn a song of your own some fine day," said the steam, as he
flew up the foghorn for one last bellow.

Next day the sky cleared and the sea dropped a little, and the
"Dimbula" began to roll from side to side till every inch of iron in
her was sick and giddy. But, luckily, they did not all feel ill at the
same time; otherwise she would have opened out like a wet paper box.
The steam whistled warnings as he went about his business, for it is
in this short, quick roll and tumble that follows a heavy sea that
most of the accidents happen; because then everything thinks that the
worst is over and goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the
beams and frames and floors and stringers and things had learned how
to lock down and lock up on one another, and endure this new kind of
strain.

They had ample time, for they were sixteen days at sea, and it was
foul weather till within a hundred miles of New York. The "Dimbula"
picked up her pilot, and came in covered with salt and red rust. Her
funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two boats had been carried
away; three copper ventilators looked like hats after a fight with the
police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; the house that
covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets; there
was a bill for small repairs in the engine room almost as long as the
screw-shaft; the forward cargo hatch fell into bucket staves when
they raised the iron crossbars; and the steam capstan had been badly
wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "a pretty
general average."

"But she's soupled," he said to Mr. Buchanan. "For all her dead
weight, she rode like a yacht. Ye mind that last blow off the Banks? I