An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the
big throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning
round in a kind of soda-water - half sea and half air - going
much faster than was proper, because there was no deep water for
it to work in. As it sank again, the engines - and they were
triple expansion, three cylinders in a row - snorted through all
their three pistons. "Was that a joke, you 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 for
is bare 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 wish 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."