“You’ll learn. Anyway, if you go in for goal, you won’t need to know so much about skating.”
“How much does a pair of skates like yours cost?” asked Toby after a moment’s silence.
“I paid five, but you can get a good pair for three and a half. Don’t buy any till you find out whether you’re going to play goal or not, though. If you play goal you’ll be better off with a pair of heavy skates with short blades. You can move a heap quicker in them.”
“And how much would they be?”
“Oh, three and a half, I guess. What’s the matter with wearing the ones you have?”
“Could I? They’re sort of old-fashioned. I only paid a dollar and a half for them, and I’ve had them about three years.”
“Let’s see them,” said Arnold. They paused in the light from a lower window in Merle and Arnold looked them over. Finally he grunted and passed them back. “I guess they wouldn’t do, Toby. They’d break in two if some one gave them a good swipe with a stick or skated into them. What you want to do is to get a pair of skating shoes and screw your skates right onto them. Those full clamp skates are always tearing your heel off.”
“How much would shoes cost?” asked Toby.
“Five dollars. More if you want to pay it. But they’ll stand by you for two or three years.”
“Yes, but Crowell said we’d all have to have hockey gloves, and they’re frightfully expensive. And I might have to buy a pair of pads if I got to playing goal. I guess hockey’s a pretty expensive game, Arn.”