technically."

"And how will you do it?" the girl asked.

"We can no more than drive and steer her and so forth; but if we
have rough weather this trip - it's likely - she'll learn the
rest by heart! For a ship, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in
no sense a reegid body closed at both ends. She's a highly
complex structure o' various an' conflictin' strains, wi'
tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' to her personal
modulus of elasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief engineer, was
coming towards them. "I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our
little Dimbula has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale
will do it. How's all wi' your engines, Buck?"

"Well enough - true by plumb an' rule, o' course; but there's no
spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss
Frazier, and maybe ye'll comprehend later; even after a pretty
girl's christened a ship it does not follow that there's such a
thing as a ship under the men that work her."

"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper
interrupted.

"That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier,
laughing.

"Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an'- I knew your mother's father, he
was fra' Dumfries - ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss
Frazier, just as ye have in the Dimbula," the engineer said.