If a bargain can be found in an old schooner with a good hull, for two or three hundred dollars, a first-class house-boat can be made by the expenditure of as much more for a cabin. The roofs of all house-boats should extend a foot or more beyond the sides of the cabin. For People of Limited Means. For people with little money to spend, these expensive boats are as much out of reach as a yacht, but they may often be rented for prices within the means of people in moderate circumstances. At New York I have known a good schooner-yacht, 84 feet over all, to be chartered for two weeks, with crew of skipper and two men, the larder plentifully supplied with provisions and luxuries for six people and the crew, making nine in all, at a cost of thirty-six dollars apiece for each of the six passengers. An equally good house-boat should not cost over twelve dollars a week per passenger for a party of ten. In inland waters, if a boat could be rented, the cost should not exceed seven or eight dollars a week per passenger. A canal-boat is a most excellent house-boat for a pleasure party, either on inland streams or along our coast. Street-Car Cabins. Since the introduction of cable and trolley cars the street-car companies have been selling their old horse-cars, in some instances at figures below the cost of the window-glass in them; so cheap, in fact, that poor people buy them to use as woodsheds and chicken-coops. One of these cars will make an ideal cabin for a house-boat, and can be adapted for that purpose with little or no alterations. All it needs is a good flat-boat to rest in, and you have a palatial house-boat. FOOTNOTE: [11] See p. 100, “The American Boy’s Handy Book.” CHAPTER XIV. A BACK-YARD SWITCHBACK. The back-yard affords an opportunity to build a summer toboggan slide, or its equivalent, commonly known as a “Switchback,” the difference being that, in place of toboggans, cars are used, and in place of ice and snow you coast down a railroad track. The Wheels of the back-yard “switchback” car must be made of thick, sound wood, and if there is a wood-working factory in your neighborhood it will save you time and trouble to go there and have the wheels sawed out with the machinery which they have built for that kind of work. But if you must do it yourself, then select a piece of two-inch plank, and after driving a tack in the centre, fasten a string to the tack and attach a soft pencil to the opposite end of the string. With this describe a circle about nine inches in diameter, or measuring about four and a half inches from the tack to the pencil. With a hand-saw roughly cut out the wheel, using great care to only touch the circle with the saw, but in no case to cut through the circumference. You will now have an irregular wheel, with a number of flat surfaces for its edge (Fig. 123 A).