Here is one who has just swum the Hellespont, one who has subdued Cleopatra; here one whose eyes are just launching a thousand ships. What a street! The afternoon wanes. Our procession turns toward home. For a few minutes the elation of our make-believes in the Avenue lingers. But the "L" trains crowd up, the street cars crowd up. It is difficult to remain a Caesar or a Don Quixote. So we withdraw and our faces become alike as turtle backs. And see, the afternoon has been squandered. There were things which should have been done. I blush indignantly at the memory of my thoughts during the shining hours in the Avenue. For I spent the valuable moments conversing with the devil. I imagined him coming for me and for two hours I elaborated a dialogue between him and myself in which I gave him my immortal soul and he in turn promised to write all the stories, novels and plays I wanted. All I would have to do was furnish the paper and leave it in a certain place and call for it the next morning and it would be completed--anything I asked for, a story, novel or play; a poem, a world-shattering manifesto--anything. Alas, I am still in possession of my immortal soul! COEUR DE LION AND THE SOUP AND FISH For they're hangin' Danny Deever-- The voice of Capt. MacVeigh of the British army rose defiantly in the North La Salle Street hall bedroom. The herculean captain, attired in a tattered bathrobe, underwear, socks and one slipper, patted the bottom of the iron with his finger and then carefully applied it to a trouser leg stretched on an ironing board in front of him. Again the voice: For they're hangin' Danny Deever; You can hear the death march play, And they're ta ta ta da They're taking him away, Ta da ta ta-- The captain was on the rocks. _Sic transit gloria mundi_. Or how saith the poet, "The lion and the lizard keep the courts where Jamshid gloried and drank deep." Bust, was the captain. "Dying, Egypt, dying, ebbs the crimson life blood fast." Flatter than a hoecake was the captain. "Farewell, my bluebell, farewell to thee," sang the captain as the iron crept cautiously over the great trouser leg of his Gargantuan full-dress suit. African mines blown up. Two inheritances shot. A last remittance blah. Rent bills, club bills, grocery bills, tailor bills, gambling bills. "Ho, Britons never will be slaves," sang the intrepid captain. Fought the bloody Boers, fought the Irawadi, fought the bloody Huns, and what was it Lady B. said at the dinner in his honor only two years ago? Ah, yes, here's to our British Tartarin, Capt. MacVeagh. But who the devil was Tartarin?