fellow outside? It's an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do _our_
work if you fly off the handle that way?"

"I didn't fly off the handle," said the screw, twirling huskily at
the end of the screw shaft. "If I had, _you'd_ have been scrap iron
by this time. The sea dropped away from under me, and I had nothing to
catch on to. That's all."

"That's all, d'you call it?" said the thrust-block, whose business it
is to take the push of the screw; for if a screw had nothing to hold
it back it would crawl right into the engine room. (It is the holding
back of the screwing action that gives the drive to a ship.) "I know
I do my work deep down and out of sight, but I warn you I expect
justice. All _I_ ask is justice. Why can't you push steadily and
evenly, instead of whizzing like a whirligig and making me hot under
all my collars?" The thrust-block had six collars, each faced with
brass, and he did not want to get them heated.

All the bearings that supported the fifty feet of screw shaft as it
ran to the stern whispered: "Justice--give us justice."

"I can only give you what I get," the screw answered. "Look out! It's
coming again!"

He rose with a roar as the "Dimbula" plunged; and
"whack--whack--whack--whack" went the engines furiously, for they had
little to check them.

"I'm the noblest outcome of human ingenuity--Mr. Buchanan says so,"
squealed the high-pressure cylinder. "This is simply ridiculous." The