Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/83

Rh might have put young Stokes in, but that would n’t have done any good. You’d have gone through him more easily than through  your brother.”

“Ned must have been overtrained.”

“I should n’t wonder. He was plucky, though. When he gets his growth and his endurance he’ll be all right. I guess he blames himself more than anybody else does.”

Other players entered the bath-room, but Edward was not among them. Charles went into the dressing-room and rubbed himself  down; at the farther end of the room he saw  Edward half undressed, sitting on a bench  with his chin in his hands. A fellow on crutches stood by him.

“You cheer up, Crashaw,” this person was saying. “I tell you, that Jackson fellow was fierce—I don’t believe anybody could have  stood up under the battering they gave you. I think you did mighty well to hold him as long as you did. Everybody thinks so too. You’re young yet; in a year or two you’ll give St. John’s what for.”