"Are we to decide now whether we will have exhibitions or not?" Steve Baxter wanted to know.
"You are to decide for yourselves whether or not a large hall is likely to be needed. I have nothing more to say on this subject. I have now given you the essential points in the new building. In the matter of halls, corridors, entrances, I shall say nothing. You need not confine yourselves to the essentials I have mentioned. If you can add any apartments that are worth having, you are at liberty to do so, and the value of any such additions or improvements will be carried to your credit on the total fitness of the plan. I hold the comfort and recreation of the pupils of the school to be entitled to consideration as well as usefulness in the narrower sense. I have said all I have to say in regard to the boat-house, and after this I shall answer no questions."
"Are the dressing-rooms to be on the lower story or the upper?" inquired Matt Randolph.
"They will be just where you choose to put them," answered the principal. "That is a question of convenience which each must decide for himself."
"But we have the two docks for the boats, the forty dressing-rooms, the four store-rooms, and the corridors and entries to put on the lower story, with nothing but the hall on the second floor," persisted Matt.
"I did not stipulate that any of the apartments you mention should be on the lower floor," said the principal, laughing. "If you think it best to put the two docks for the barges on the second floor, of course you have a perfect right to do so."
"A boat is a good thing to have, but it isn't particularly valuable on the top of a mountain for sailing purposes, and I should rather have it where there is a body of water," persisted Matt. "The docks will take up about fifteen hundred square feet, and that is space enough for a hall that will hold one hundred and fifty or two hundred people. It seems to me that the parts don't balance well."
"It is for you to balance them, then. I have given you the essentials of the boat-house, and I leave all the rest of it to you," replied Captain Gildrock. "If you please, Randolph, we will not argue the matter, for you are giving your associates points that I wish them to study out for themselves. Now we will consider the location and the engineering work."
"I don't see why these are put together," said Oscar Chester.
"Because they are very closely connected," answered Captain Gildrock. "If one of you decides that the boat-house ought to be built in the middle of the lake, he ought to tell us how the foundation is to be laid, and how we are to reach it."