Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/159

 hour past nineteen, and they is no doubt that many's the tall, willowy blonde took one look at this vest-pocket size heart breaker that night and wished she had missed the boat!

The Kid was down for the count after the first look, and the luck of fools and lovers, which is the same thing, was with him. Over comes the old gent himself whilst this second Venus is dancin' with some bimbo which must of been born with a four-leafed clover in each hand.

"Pardon me," remarks the apparent father of the prettiest girl on our popular planet, whilst he pulls a grin which tags him to me as a regular guy. "You're Kane Halliday, are you not?"

The Kid looks kind of flushed, but he was always there with the old drawin'-room stuff. "I am," he admits, with a well-placed bow. "But you have the advantage of me, I'm afraid."

"I suppose so," says old Father William. "It's some years since I last saw you, and then you were too busy to stop for a chat."

He puts his hand on the Kid's shoulder and throws that grin into high.

"You were—ah—going through eleven husky young Harvard cubs with a pigskin tucked under your left arm!"

The Kid blushes like a bevy of schoolgirls, but before he can set the old guy goes on: "I'm Senator Brewster of New York, a schoolmate of your dear mother's—whom you greatly resemble—and an admirer of your prowess in the twenty-four-foot square. I saw your last fight with Kennedy and