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The plans for abandoning the ship in case of emergency had been made well in advance, and men and dogs descended to the floe and made their way to the comparative safety of an unbroken portion of the floe without a hitch. Just before leaving, I looked down the engine- room skylight as I stood on the quivering deck, and saw the engines dropping sideways as the stays and bed-plates gave way.
When it was no more than a howling gale, the engine lifted up in the air, parted its bed-plates with a last convulsive effort of its forty horsepower, and lay down on its side. A wash of water from the bilge sizzled over it and the steam arose in clouds.
Calder was her engineer he's not fit to run a tug down the Solent and he fairly lifted the engines off the bed-plates, an' they fell down in heaps, by what I heard.
That was his pride o' the flesh. "As the longest man in the island " he said, but there they took him up and asked if he were sure. "I say I am the longest man in the island," he said, "and on that I'll bet my substance." 'They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and there, and put it aside while they called Jock Coan from his house, near by among the fireflies' winking.
"'Keep faith wi' the Breslau, then, I said. 'She's served you well, an' your father before you. She'll need her bottom restiffenin', an' new bed-plates, an' turnin' out the forward boilers, an' re-turnin' all three cylinders, an' refacin' all guides, to begin with. It's a three months' job. "'Because one employee is afraid? 'says young Steiner.
From the ardent mouths of her eight furnaces to the last drip from her lubricators, from her bed-plates to the breeches of her quick-firers, he knew her read her gauges, thumbed her bearings, gave the ranges from her range-finders, and lived the life he lived who was in command of her.
"Nor peddler," added Mount; "the strap of the Delaware baskets never bowed his legs." "Thrue, avick! Wisha, lad, 'tis horses he knows better than snow-shoes, bed-plates, an' thrip-sticks! An' I've seen him, I think!" "Where?" I asked. He shook his head, vacantly staring.
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