will be. No rivet forged
can stand this strain."

"No one rivet was ever meant to. Share it among you," the Steam
answered.

"The others can have my share. I'm going to pull out," said a rivet in
one of the forward plates.

"If you go, others will follow," hissed the Steam. "There's nothing so
contagious in a boat as rivets going. Why, I knew a little chap like
you--he was an eighth of an inch fatter, though--on a steamer--to be
sure, she was only twelve hundred tons, now I come to think of it--in
exactly the same place as you are. He pulled out in a bit of a bobble
of a sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends on
the same butt-strap, and the plates opened like a furnace door, and I
had to climb into the nearest fog-bank, while the boat went down."

"Now that's peculiarly disgraceful," said the rivet. "Fatter than me,
was he, and in a steamer not half our tonnage? Reedy little peg! I
blush for the family, sir." He settled himself more firmly than ever
in his place, and the Steam chuckled.

"You see," he went on, quite gravely, "a rivet, and especially a rivet
in your position, is really the one indispensable part of the ship."

The Steam did not say that he had whispered the very same thing to
every single piece of iron aboard. There is no sense in telling too
much truth.

And all that while the little _Dimbula_ pitched and chopped, and swung
and slewed, and lay down as though she were going to die, and got up
as though she had been stung, and threw her nose round and round in
circles half a dozen times as she dipped; for the gale was at its
worst. It was inky black, in spite of the tearing white froth on the
waves, and, to top everything, the rain began to fall in sheets, so
that you could not see your hand before your face. This did not make
much difference to the ironwork below, but it troubled the foremast a
good deal.

"Now it's all finished," he said dismally. "The conspiracy is too
strong for us. There is nothing left but to----"

"_Hurraar! Brrrraaah! Brrrrrrp!_" roared the Steam through the
fog-horn, till the decks quivered. "Don't be frightened, below. It's
only me, just throwing out a few words, in case any one happens to be
rolling round to-night."

"You don't mean to say there's any one except us on the sea in such
weather?" said the funnel in a husky snuffle.

"Scores of 'em," said the Steam, clearing its throat; "_Rrrrrraaa!
Brraaaaa! Prrrrp!_ It's a trifle windy up her