Jean Godard twirled his cap about some time, looked at the drawings in every possible way, scratched his right ear again, then his left, and after a good half-hour declared that he consented to be paid for floors of this kind at the same rate as for ordinary floors according to measurement.
“And you are right,” said Eugène; “for if you manage your work well, if there is no bungling, you will gain more by this bargain than if we paid you according to time, because there is less work in flooring of this kind for the same quantity of material than in those you are accustomed to make, especially in this neighbourhood.”
Jean Godard, however, asked for an additional consideration for the bearers that were to be substituted for the rough fixing in the walls.
“Granted,” said Eugène; “we save plaster cornices, and it is right that we should make you an allowance on that account.”
It was therefore resolved that they should make a separate payment for the labour on the bearers, that is, for their notches and chamfers.
Next day four pit-saws were at work, cutting up the timber that had been stored. The scene of labour had resumed all its activity. In the masonry department a design for a dormer-window remained to be furnished, but which was soon supplied (Fig. [55]), and besides this the direction of the chimney flues.
Eugène on giving Paul the particulars of the dormer-windows, section A and exterior elevation B, drew his attention to their construction. Raised on a gutter-wall 20 inches thick, they were to consist of two jambs of three courses each. On the first two courses would be left a string-course C, designed to cover the slate of the roofing and to form a filleting. These two jambs would carry the lintel and two stones forming corbels. Two pieces on this lintel would receive the gable knees, and would form the jambs of the higher opening designed to ventilate the attics. The gable would consist of two courses surmounted by a finial. The section indicated how the slopes of the coping would form a filleting on the small roofs of these dormer-windows behind, and a drip in front, to hinder the rain-water from running down the faces of the stone-work.
Fig. 55.