"Then don't ever say I didn't warn you!" The American spoke with his mouth full of baked potato.
"Thanks," said Paul, at a loss to handle the other's abrupt goodwill.
The American read encouragement in Paul's hesitation. Pointing with his fork to an untouched slice of tomato, he announced, in genial tones:
"I fired one o' them at a priest once—in school."
"Good for you!" Paul exclaimed. "Did you hit him?"
"Did I? Say, listen, I can see the juice runnin' down Father Mulligan's neck to this day."
"Did you get caned for it?"
"Caned! I got canned. They kicked me out o' school so hard I'm still goin'!'
"A bit drastic," Paul commented.
"They was tryin' to make priests of us. Can you imagine me bein' a priest?"
"It does take a bit of imagining."
The American was reliving his past. "What didn't hit Father Mulligan kept on goin', see. It was in geography, and there was a map of the world on the blackboard. After bustin' on his jaw the remains of the vegetable landed just about here," and he waved his hand toward the black wilderness outside the window.
"About here?"
"It finally struck the middle of the world—get me? Egypt roughly."
"Oh—I see. So you, being Irish and consequently superstitious, took it as an omen—came here in accordance with that fateful indication? A sort of dickory-dickory-dock decision."
The American's eyes flashed blue. "That's about the size of it. After I'd put Egypt on the map, so to speak, why I felt like I sort of owned it, see, and finally come over."
"Had any luck?"
