Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/139

 Paddy Leary could meet this ex-Tenth Avenue playmate, Hazel Killian.

The party came near being a bust, as the now upstage and milk-fed Hazel at first indignantly denied she had ever resided on Tenth Avenue. Fighting Paddy, however, supplied her with a few facts and figures till she hurriedly shut off his rather intimate reminiscences by admitting it. But she only vaguely remembered him and treated him with exceeding coolness when she learned he was merely a prize fighter. I had tipped Monsieur Leary to work in some mention of his apartment houses in all his speeches and pretty soon it got results. Fighting Paddy's real estate holdings and the possibility of his becoming a world's champion appealed to the beautiful but cold-blooded Hazel, and before she parted from Fighting Paddy that night she agreed to let him call on her in London—if he defeated Mr. Grenadier Tompkins.

Well, Hazel and me finally tripped aboard the good ship Mal de Mer and set forth to dumfound Europe. It was my first sail past the Battery and once aboard the lugger I began to get homesick. However, there were so many things happened on this voyage that the blues had no chance with me. I'll remember that journey when I've forgotten my own name, honestly!

To begin with, there was the merry ship's company