Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/134

114 he smiled at Edward, who had edged closer and got hold of his hand.

“Cheer up, Ned,” he said. “What are you looking so blue about? You fellows have a chance to beat us yet.”

There was laughter at that, the laughter of relief and of applause.

With Charles showing such fortitude, Edward felt that he must be equally stoical. So instead of saying what had been on his lips,—“O Charley, does it hurt awfully? Are you all right? Is n’t there something I can do?”—he merely observed, “Your face,  Charley, is certainly a mess.”

All the St. Timothy’s boys clapped when Charles got to his feet and skated again out  on the ice; and then Jim Payne called for a  cheer, and they gave nine rahs, with “Crashaw” at the end of them; that made Edward’s eyes shine and his face flush, and he  looked shyly away when Lawrence and Keating glanced at him and smiled.

Yet it was in pity almost as much as in admiration that the boys applauded Charles; his