Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/30

14 “If the Fifth are angry at Crashaw for something he did n’t do, I think you ought to  let him out of it,” declared Keating.

“Oh, I’m proud to be considered the author. I think the notice was mighty good—wish I could have thought it up,” said Edward.

As long as Edward felt that way about it, Lawrence decided that the authorship of the notice might be worth claiming, and he proceeded at once to assert it. In consequence he was denounced as cheap enough by some of his Fifth Form friends, while others abated not at all their resentment against the innocent Crashaw; well, they said, perhaps he did n’t actually write the notice, but he must  have known about it, and anyway it was he  who had the effrontery to challenge the Sixth  Form and ignore the Fifth, and that was a  fresh enough thing for any Fourth Former,  much less a new kid, to do. It just showed that he had the regular bumptious St. John’s  spirit in him; he ought to have gone to St. John’s like his brother.

That was the way the conservative and in-