The house will be much strengthened if strips, as shown in Fig. 20, are fastened in the corners inside, after lining with brown paper, screwing them each way into the boards. The door may have a latch or lock with a knob, but should in addition have two buttons on the inside, fixed so as to pull it shut tightly at top and bottom. A waste pipe should be attached to the sink and arranged to discharge through the floor. A cistern with pipe and tap can be fastened in the top of the dark room, if desired, or the room may be made with a flat roof, and a tank stand on it, though this is hardly advisable.
It is absolutely necessary that the room be well painted, four coats at first is not too many, and one coat twice a year will keep it in good condition.
A brick foundation should be laid so that no part of the room touches the ground.
"Querl" is the German name for a kitchen utensil which may be used as an egg-beater, potato-masher or a lemon-squeezer. For beating up an egg in a glass, mixing flour and water, or stirring cocoa or chocolate, it is better than anything on the market.
This utensil is made of hardwood, preferably maple or ash. A circular piece about 2 in. in diameter is cut from 1/2-in. stock and shaped like a star as shown in Fig. 1, and a 3/8-in. hole bored in the center for a handle. The handle should be at least 12 in. in length and fastened in the star as shown in Fig. 2.
In use, the star is placed in the dish containing the material to be beaten or mixed and the handle is rapidly rolled between the palms of the hands. --Contributed by W. Karl Hilbrich, Erie, Pennsylvania.
Occasionally one finds a piece of soldering to do which is impossible to reach with even the smallest of the ordinary soldering irons or coppers. If a length of copper wire as large as the job will permit and sufficiently long to admit being bent at one end to form a rough handle, and filed or dressed to a point on the other, is heated and tinned exactly as a regular copper should be, the work will cause no trouble on account of inaccessibility. --Contributed by E. G. Smith, Eureka Springs, Ark.
When an ink line is erased the roughened surface of the paper should be smoothed or polished so as to prevent the succeeding lines of ink from spreading. A convenient desk accessory for this purpose can be made of a short