Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/234

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artistic writing-desk has a drop-ledge that closes up and can be locked against the rail just under the line of pigeonholes. The sides are forty-five inches high, fifteen inches wide at the bottom, and eleven near the top, where the square end is shown, and behind which the wood is cut away in a curved form. The top angles of the triangular coves cut at the lower ends of the sides are eight inches high from the floor. Ten inches above the floor, mortises are cut in the sides, just over the cove angles, into which the ends of the lower cross-rail fit. These ends are three inches high and seven eights of an inch wide, and a similar mortise is cut at the top, of each side-piece, into which the ends of the ledge over the pigeonholes ft and are wedged tight with wooden pins.

The desk may be from twenty-four to thirty-six inches in width, but thirty inches will be found a desirable size, The writing ledge is thirty inches above the floor, and to the front edge of it a drop-ledge of the proper width is attached with hinges let into the wood on the top when the ledge is let down, The width of the ledge is made according to the location of the rail that supports the pigeonholes, so that no definite size can be given, but must be determined after the pigeonholes and rails are in place. The lower cross-rail is five inches wide, and is cut at the ends, as shown in, so that they can be anchored with wooden pins. At the back, about midway between top and bottom, laps are cut in the side boards six inches long and seven eighths of an inch deep, into which a brace is laid and made fast. Similar laps are cut near the top, into which the ends of the top or crown board fit.

Excepting the top ledge, the inside partitions are three eighths of an inch in thickness, while all the other woodwork forming the desk is seven eighths of an inch thick, of pretty grained wood which will look well stained and varnished.

is a very useful piece of furnitare for a boy's room, For a room of average size the table-top can be forty-eight inches long, twenty-six wide, and thirty high, with the corner posts two and a half inches square, and set in three inches from the edges and ends of the top, so as to form an overhang. A careful in