me breathe!"

All the hundreds of plates that are riveted on to the frames, and make
the outside skin of every steamer, echoed the call, for each plate
wanted to shift and creep a little, and each plate, according to its
position, complained against the rivets.

"We can't help it! _We_ can't help it!" they murmured. "We're put here
to hold you, and we're going to do it. You never pull us twice in the
same direction. If you'd say what you were going to do next, we'd try
to meet your views."

"As far as I could feel," said the upper-deck planking, and that was
four inches thick, "every single iron near me was pushing or pulling
in opposite directions. Now, what's the sense of that? My friends, let
us all pull together."

"Pull any way you please." roared the funnel, "so long as you don't
try your experiments on _me_. I need fourteen wire ropes, all pulling
in opposite directions, to hold me steady. Isn't that so?"

"We believe you, my boy!" whistled the funnel stays through their
clenched 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!" said 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 to the deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the
load.

"Straight up and down is not bad," said the frames who run that way
in the sides of the ship, "but you must also expand yourself sideways.
Expansion is the law of life, children. Open out! Open out!"

"Come back!" said the deck beam, 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 mustn't and
sha'n't move."

"I've