“That is for the bottom of your till,” replied her father.
He then took a large pair of dividers, which he had brought with him, and began to mark and measure in various ways, so that Lucy could not understand at all what he was doing.
Presently he said,—
“Should you prefer to have a fixed, or a sliding till, children?”
“O, a sliding till,” said Royal; “let’s have a sliding till, Lucy. But, father,” he continued, after a moment’s pause, “what is a sliding till?”
“How do you know that you should like a sliding till, if you do not know what it is?” asked his father.
“Why, I am pretty sure,” said Royal, “that I should like a till that would slide. But I never saw one that would slide. They are almost always fastened in at the end.”
Royal was correct in this statement. The till of a chest is commonly a shallow box passing across the end of it, near the top, and is usually fastened to its place. But there is an inconvenience in having it fastened, unless it is made quite small; for, if it is large, it covers and conceals the things which are below it, in the bottom of the chest.
Now, Lucy’s father wanted to make his till pretty large. He cut it out square, as long, each way, as the width of the marble box. Now, as the marble box was about twice as long as it was wide, it follows that the till was large enough to cover one half of the upper part of the box. If, therefore, it had been fixed into its place, it would have been inconvenient on account of its covering and concealing the things beneath it, and making it difficult to get them out. So Royal’s father concluded to make it movable.
The arrangement which he adopted to secure this object was this: He brought in two strips of wood, which he cut off so as to make them just as long as the box itself, inside. He then bored two holes in each of these strips, and, by means of some little screws, he screwed them to the sides of the box, within, about three inches from the top. Royal and Lucy watched their father very intently while he was doing this; but they did not ask any questions. They thought that it might interrupt him, and disturb his calculations, if they were to ask him questions; so they preferred to look on and observe for themselves.