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The Adventures of Bobby Orde, a novel by Stewart Edward White |
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Chapter 15. The Upper Rooms |
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_ CHAPTER XV. THE UPPER ROOMS On Mr. Orde's return from the woods, he was promptly called upon to redeem his promise. He therefore, showed Bobby a few of the simpler wrestler's tricks which Bobby adopted and brooded over in his manner. The first game of robber and policeman thereafter, he tried one on Johnny, but bungled it and got sat on harder than ever. Bobby's trouble in the practice of such matters arose from the fact that he was too analytical. Before an idea could become part of his make-up, he had to revolve it over in his mind, examining it from all sides, understanding the relations of its component parts, making the mechanism revolve slowly, as it were, in order to comprehend all its correlations. This analytical thought naturally made him, to a certain degree, self-conscious in his movements. It destroyed the instinctive, superconscious accuracy valuable in all games of skill, but absolutely necessary to such things as skating, boxing, wrestling, wing-shooting, tennis and the like. Self-consciousness in such cases means awkwardness. Bobby, in learning a new thing, was awkward. But he possessed a wonderful persistence. In time he would think all around a thing. In more time he would have practised it sufficiently to have lost sight of the carefully considered "reason why" for each move. Thus the final, though delayed, result was apt to be more consistent performance than Johnny's brilliantly instinctive achievements. For example, Bobby tried again and again to attain the quick twisting heave necessary to the common "grape-vine." At no time did he achieve more than partial success. But in his numerous attempts he, without knowing it, taught Johnny. That quick-witted youth caught the possibilities and at his first attempt sprawled Bobby. In fact, by the time Bobby had even a fair command of the three or four falls shown him by his father, Johnny was skilful in them all and could catch Bobby with them twice as often as Bobby could catch him. This kept Bobby humble-minded, and, as it in no way discouraged him from keeping at it, was a good thing for him. Here is perhaps as good a place as any to remark parenthetically that while the friends scuffled and wrestled constantly, Johnny never got to be much better than he became in the first three weeks, while Bobby, in later years, was the middle-weight champion of his class at college. The autumn passed, and colder weather set in. Out of doors was available only for the activities of life. As long as energy was burnt with some lavishness, all was well, but when the first enthusiasm had ebbed, Jack Frost began to nip shrewdly. Then the children went within doors. They divided their favours almost equally between the third stories of the Orde and English homes. The Englishes' third story had never been finished. Bare walls, bare floors, fresh varnished wood-work and the steam radiators constituted the whole equipment. This very openness of space, however, proved an irresistible attraction to the children. Gradually articles of their amusement became installed, until the latter end of that third story was an official "play room." Shelves--made by Johnny--held books and miscellaneous junk; toys of various sorts were scattered about; against the wall was screwed a noisy chest-weight, which nobody disturbed; near the window stood a scroll-saw worked by foot-power. Nobody bothered with that either, for the simple reason that all the saw blades were broken and the novelty had worn off. Bobby would have liked to experiment with it, but of course he did not feel like suggesting repairs. But the Upper Rooms were full of echoes and noises when one clumped on the bare floor, and space with nothing to knock over when one scuffled, and the air was always cold enough so one could see his breath. Therefore the Upper Rooms were popular, but in a different manner and for different purposes than Bobby's warmed and furnished chamber. Here the rougher, noisier romping took place, and here was finally brought to adjustment the smouldering rivalry between the two small boys. _ |
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