"How's the noblest outcome of human ingenuity hitting it?" said the
steam, as he whirled through the engine room.

"Nothing for nothing in the world of woe," the cylinders answered,
as if they had been working for centuries, "and precious little for
seventy-five pounds head. We've made two knots this last hour and a
quarter! Rather humiliating for eight hundred horse-power, isn't it?"

"Well, it's better than drifting astern, at any rate. You seem rather
less--how shall I put it?--stiff in the back than you were."

"If you'd been hammered as we've been this night, you wouldn't be
stiff--ffreff--ff--either. Theoreti--retti--retti--cally, of course,
rigidity 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