Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/96

78 “How do you know?” Edward laughed. “You never played ball enough to find out.”

“Well, you try rowing; you’ll see. I’ve got a new toy I want to show you; I’ll let you  play with it maybe if you ’re good. Come up to my room and see it.”

Charles’s room had always had a fascination for the younger brother. It was at least twice as large as Edward’s own, and as Charles had  grown and waxed great in athletic prowess and  ambition he had equipped it more and more as  a gymnasium.

Only within the last year or two had he admitted Edward into it on equal terms; before  that, it had been chiefly as an admiring spectator that Edward had come and had been  received; and not until Charles had finished  showing off with his Indian clubs and his  punching-bag and his horizontal bar,—on  which he believed he could do the giant swing  if the ceiling were high enough to let him,—not until he had given a display of his  superior attainments would he condescend to