“The exertion of going up hill makes him breathe a little hard, naturally,” I answered, reassuring her. “He is feeling in fine condition, though,” I added, inspecting the steam-gauge by the light of my lantern; “the effect of a plentiful supply of oats, doubtless.”
“You speak of it as he,” she said, questioningly.
“Certainly; why not?” I retorted. “He seems to me unequivocally masculine.”
“True,” she assented; “still in personifying inanimate objects, are they not more frequently made members of the other sex?”
“Undoubtedly they are, but it strikes me as a ridiculous custom—particularly in the case of great machines. No engine, however big, black or ungainly, but it must be spoken of by the feminine pronoun. It is hardly a compliment to your sex, is it? Think of the incongruity of putting, for instance, a huge steamboat, named for the president of the company, into the feminine gender!”
She laughed at my fancy, but her merriment did not wound my sensibilities. “So it's—I beg pardon, his—name is Antaeus, is it?”
“Yes, in honor of that old giant—do you recollect?—whom Hercules overcame.”
“By lifting him quite off the ground, because as often as he came in contact with Mother Earth his strength was renewed? Yes, I recall the story, and I can see a certain propriety in the name. I rather think this fellow, if he were to be lifted off the ground, could scarcely use his great strength to advantage. Imagine him turned upon his back like a huge beetle, kicking about frantically into the air to no purpose!”
“Undoubtedly he gets his grip from his contact with the earth,” said I. “As a flying-machine he would hardly be a success.”
“Doesn't it strike you that he is almost unnecessarily deliberate?” she queried, presently, with a slight show of impatience; evidently the novelty of the adventure was beginning to wear off.