Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/196

 nothing but a director, a camera and a couple of union-pie-throwers!

Hurling the hat-boxes aboard, Mike made a praiseworthy but wild leap for the deck, lustily cheered by the delighted mob on the dock and the heavily thrilled me and Hazel. However, he turned out to be a very much better pitcher than he was a broad jumper. The hat-boxes landed K. O. but with Mike it was different! By an odd coincidence he missed the gangplank from here to Baluchistan and hit the water with a fearful splash. Me and Hazel were only two of the scores who shrieked and "Oh-ed!" while the laughing deck-hands fished him out of the water and pulled him aboard, limp, soaked and bedraggled. Try and keep an Irishman down with plain water!

Accompanied by a frantic young gentleman who we afterwards learned was Silent Sam Shapiro, Mike's manager, me and Hazel rushed down to where the water-logged Mr. McGann lay prostrate on the deck. The ship's doctor and some admiring volunteers were busy trying to bring him back to normalcy. Michael looked like a total loss when Silent Sam pushed his way through and scowled down at his unconscious meal ticket.

"The dizzy little stiff!" remarks Silent Sam indignantly to the world at large. "We got sixty thousand dollars' worth of box fights signed up and can you