McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 4, March, 1896 by Various
page 57 of 197 (28%)
page 57 of 197 (28%)
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piston went up savagely and choked, for half the steam behind it
was mixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! I'm choking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention has such a calamity overtaken one so young and strong. And if I go, who's to drive the ship?" "Hush! oh, hush!" whispered the steam, who, of course, had been to sea many times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore, in a cloud, or a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder storm, or anywhere else where water was needed. "That's only a little priming, as they call it. It'll happen all night, on and off. I don't say it's nice, but it's the best we can do under the circumstances." "What difference can circumstances make? I'm here to do my work--on clean, dry steam. Blow circumstances!" the cylinder roared. "The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I've worked on the North Atlantic run a good many times--it's going to be rough before morning." "It isn't distressingly calm now," said the extra strong frames, they were called web frames, in the engine room. "There's an upward thrust that we don't understand, and there's a twist that is very bad for our brackets and diamond plates, and there's a sort of northwestward pull that follows the twist, which seriously annoys us. We mention this because _we_ happened to cost a great deal of money, and we feel sure that the owner would not approve of our being treated in this frivolous way." "I'm afraid the matter's out of the owner's hands for the present," |
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