Fig. 34.
“As to the bearers B, (placed against the wall, as section C shows), they will be supported by corbels, D, a yard apart at most, and by cramps, I, to prevent these timbers from giving out. This arrangement will take the place of those cornices run in plaster, which are of no use, and which we could not get executed properly in this neighbourhood, where we have no good workmen in plaster. When partitions above have to be supported, we will put a special joist, the section of which I have sketched for you at E, composed of two pieces, a and b, with an iron plate between them—the whole fastened together by iron pins at intervals. Joists like this are perfectly rigid.
“As the joists rest on bearers, we have no need to trouble ourselves about the windows, but we shall require trimmers at the chimney-breasts and under the hearths, and—to receive these trimmers—trimmer-joists. You will easily see that it would be dangerous to lay pieces of wood under fireplaces. Accordingly, we place on the two sides of the jambs of these fireplaces, at a distance of 12 inches from the hearth-stones, stronger joists, which receive at 32 or 36 inches from the wall—to clear the width of the fireplace—a piece called a trimmer, into which the joists are tenoned.
“For the trimmer-joists we will take the type previously indicated at E; we shall strengthen (Fig. [33]) this beam in its bearing with a block, D, resting on a strong stone corbel. We will bind the two pieces, E and D, by an iron strap, F, and frame the trimmer by a tenon, H, in the mortise G. This trimmer will receive, like the bearers, the ends of the joists at I. The space, G K, will be the under side of the hearth of the fireplace above; it will be 32 inches wide, and will be bedded with brick, laid on tie-pieces of iron, L. These trimmer-joists, E, will have to be let into the wall about 4 inches, to render them firm and bind the structure; but in the neighbourhood of the flues we have no reason to fear the effect of damp on the wood. To sum up, this is the appearance of these joists and trimmers underneath the fireplaces (Fig. [34]).”
All this, it must be confessed, appeared rather strange to Paul, accustomed as he was to the invariable smooth white ceiling, and who had never suspected that such level surfaces could hide such a framework.
CHAPTER XII.
OBSERVATIONS ADDRESSED TO EUGÈNE BY PAUL, AND THE REPLIES MADE TO THEM.
Paul, with his head bent over the paper covered with sketches, and his hands between his knees, could not help thinking, for his part, that his cousin was covering a good deal of paper in making ceilings, whereas they had always seemed to him the simplest thing in the world, and the least susceptible of complication. In his own mind, in fact, Paul made scarcely any distinction between a sheet of paper stretched on a board, and a ceiling. So when Eugène had repeated the phrase, “Is it quite clear to you?” Paul hesitated a little, and said, “I think so,” adding, after a pause—
“But, cousin, why not make floors and ceilings as they do everywhere else?”
“It seems to you a complicated affair, my dear fellow,” replied Eugène, “and you would like to simplify the matter.”