‘Excuse the expression, Edgar,’ he said one day, ‘but your sister is a brick.’
The schoolboy ‘brick’ is synonymous for everything that is good. When one lad calls another a ‘brick’ there’s a ring about the word that is unmistakable. So, when Will Brown called his sister a brick, Edgar Foster heartily endorsed the sentiment.
‘I’d like to know,’ said Will, ‘if there is anything she cannot do?’
‘Several things,’ said Edgar.
They were sitting in a boat close to the garden hedge, and passing their time pleasantly enough.
‘Enumerate some of them,’ said Will Brown incredulously.
‘She cannot smoke,’ said Edgar solemnly; ‘nor can she make a speech. She would be a ghastly failure as a woman politician, or a leader of fashion. I am afraid she could not write a book, and drag all her female friends through a moral pillory in it. Oh, there are heaps of things Doris cannot do!’
‘And a jolly good thing, too!’ said Will Brown. ‘I hate stuck-up girls—they’re worse than spoony girls. Now, your sister—well, a fellow can make a chum of her, and all that, don’t you know.’
‘Comprehensive, certainly,’ laughed Edgar. ‘What does “all that, don’t you know” mean?’
Will Brown waved his hand towards the flowing river, and was at a loss for an answer.