"Talking of strain," said a low, rasping, unpleasant voice, are
any of you fellows - you deck-beams, we mean - aware that those
exceedingly ugly knees of yours happen to be riveted into our
structure - ours?"

"Who might you be?" the deck-beams inquired.

"Oh, nobody in particular," was the answer. "We're only the port
and starboard upper-deck stringers; and if you persist in heaving
and hiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take
steps."

Now the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak,
that run lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames
(what are called ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help
to hold the ends of the deck-beams, which go from side to side of
the ship. Stringers always consider themselves most important,
because they are so long.

"You will take steps - will you?" This was a long echoing
rumble. It came from the frames - scores and scores of them,
each one about eighteen inches distant from the next, and each
riveted to the stringers in four places. "We think you will have
a certain amount of trouble in that"; and thousands and thousands
of the little rivets that held everything together whispered: "You
Will! You will! Stop quivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren!
Hold on! Hot Punches! What's that?"

Rivets have no teeth, so they cannot chatter with fright; but they
did their best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern