Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/203

 him was fighter! Hazel's vis-à-vis was almost a six-footer, but he was likewise middle-aged, puffy-jowled and paunched.

"Listen, you big parsnip!" says Mike, all business and looking it, "that stuff about this girl not bein' no lady is out, get me? I think I'll put you out too, just to be nasty!"

Whack! One of Michael's iron fists slammed into the big man's highly amazed tummy. Clunk! The other fist was buried to the wrist in the same place. This was repeated twice with lightning-like rapidity, and with a grunting gasp Mike's prey bent double at the waist, bringing his chin down just in time to keep an engagement with two terrible blows to that part of his anatomy. He fell with the usual dull thud, as if hit with a sledge! Confusion took complete charge for a few moments, during which our gay little party hurriedly scurried out on deck.

In the shadow and safety of a life-boat, Mike coolly wiped his skinned knuckles with a gaudy silk handkerchief and seemed to take the incident as a matter of course, blaming it on Hazel for spilling the salt in the first place. He knew something would happen, he says, but got no further! Me and Hazel, furious at the undesirable attention we had attracted, fled to our cabin, leaving Mike and Sam flat.

Well, that was the last we saw of Mike McGann and