Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/197

 imagine this bozo takin' a chance like that with my cut of the sugar?"

"You unfeeling wretch!" explodes Hazel, to my surprise. "He might have been drowned!"

"He'd just as soon play a dirty trick like that on me as not!" agrees Silent Sam. "When I first took hold of him he was as homeless as a poker chip, yet he ain't got a ounce of gratitude in his system for what I done for him. They don't make 'em no selfisher!"

We both glare at him and at that minute Michael opens his eyes, staring around vacantly. Then he sees me and a glint of recognition brightens his face.

"I told you that black cat and that cross-eyed banana which run that taxi would gum this trip for me!" he gulps almost triumphantly through chattering teeth. "Somebody catch me a cuppa hot coffee, I'm as cold as a pawnbroker's heart!"

Well, on the voyage home Michael McGann and his talkative manager, Silent Sam Shapiro, clung to us like bathing suits, honestly. While Michael was recovering from his spectacular dive into the briny, Silent Sam told us something about him. He was rushing his visible means of support back from unamended Europe to get him "off the gin and on the gym," as he put it. Yes, McGann was his real name and Silent Sam wouldn't let him put "One-Round," "Kid," "Hur-