A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago

by Ben Hecht

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?

Never mind. "There's a long, long trail a-windin' and ta da ta ta ta tum," sang Capt. MacVeagh and he took up the other trouser leg. Egad, what a life! Not a sou markee left. Not a thin copper, not a farthing! "Strike me blind, me wife's confined and I'm a blooming father," sang Capt. MacVeagh, "For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the death march play——"

* * * * *

This was the last phalanx. This thing on the ironing board was Horatius at the bridge holding in check the hordes of false Tarquin. Everything gone but this. Not even a pair of pants or a smoking coat. Not a blooming thing left but this—a full-dress suit beginning to shine a bit in the rear.

"The shades of night were falling fast when through an Alpine village passed"—egad, what a primitive existence. Like an Irunti in the Australian bush. Telling time by the sun. It must be approachin' six, thought the captain as his voice trailed off.

Beautiful thought. "Mabel, little Mabel, with her face against the pane, sits beside the window, looking at the rain." That was Capt. MacVeagh of the British army, prisoner in a La Salle Street hall bedroom. No clothes to wear, nothing but the soup and fish. So he must sit and wait till evening came, till a gentleman could put on his best bib and tucker, and then—allons! Freshly shaved, pink jowled, swinging his ebony stick, his pumps gleaming with a new coat of vaseline, off for the British Officers' Club!

All day long the herculean captain sulked in his tent—an Achilles with a sliver in his heel. But come evening, come the gentle shades of darkness, and presto! Like a lily of the field, who spun not nor toiled; like a knight of the boulevards, this servant of the king leaped forth in all his glory. The landlady was beginning to lose her awe of the dress suit, the booming barytone and the large aristocratic pink face of her mysterious boarder. And she was pressing for back rent. But the club was still tolerant.

"A soldier o' the legion lay dyin' in Algiers," chanted the captain, and with his shoulders back he strode into the wide world. A meal at the club, and gadzooks but his stomach was in arms! Not a bite since the last club meal. God bless the club!

"Get a job?" repeated the captain to one of the members, "I would but the devil take it, how can a man go around asking for a job in a dress suit? And I'm so rotten big that none of my friends can loan me a suit. And my credit is gone with at least twelve different tailors. I'm sort o' taboo as a borrower. Barry, old top, if you will chase the blighter after another highball, I'll drink your excellent health."

"There's a job if you want it that you can do in your dress suit," said his friend Barry. "If you don't mind night work."

"Not at all," growled Capt. MacVeagh.

"Well," said the friend, "there's a circus in town and they want a man to drive the chariot in the chariot race. It's only a little circus. And there's only three chariots in the race. You get $10 for driving and $25 a night if you win the race. And they give you a bloomin' toga to put on over your suit, you know, and a ribbon to tie around your head. And there you are."

"Righto !" cried the captain, "and where is this rendezvous of skill and daring? I'm off. I'll drive that chariot out of breath."

Capt. MacVeagh got the job. Capt. MacVeagh won the first race. Clad in a flapping toga, a ribbon round his forehead, the hero of the British army went Berserker on the home stretch and, lashing his four ponies into a panic, came gloriously down the last lap, two lengths ahead and twenty-five marvelous coins of the realm to the good.

That night at the club Capt. MacVeagh stood treat. British wassail and what not. The twenty-five dollars melted pleasantly and the captain fell off in a happy doze as rosy fingered Aurora touched the city roof-tops.

But, alas, the wages of sin! For the captain was not so good when he mounted his chariot the second night. A beehive buzzed in his head and huge, globular disturbances seemed to fill the air. And, standing waveringly on his feet as the giddy chariot bounced down the track, the captain let forth a sudden yell and sailed off into space. The chariot ponies and hero of the British army had gone crashing into the side lines.

* * * * *

"When they brought him to the hospital in the ambulance," explained the captain's friend, "they had taken the toga off him, of course, and the old boy was in his dress clothes. This kind o' knocked their eyes out, so what do they do but give him the most expensive suite in the place and the prettiest nurse and the star surgeon. And they mend and feed him up for two weeks. We all called on him and brought him a few flowers. The lad was surely in clover.

"The hospital authorities had nothing to go on but this dress suit as evidence. And when the nurse asked him what he wanted done with the suit, saying it was a bit torn from the accident, MacVeagh waves his hand and answers, 'Oh, throw the blasted thing out of the window or give it to the janitor.' And she did. I always thought it quite a story."

"But how did it end? What became of the captain when they found out he couldn't pay his bill and all that? And where's he now?"

"You'll have to end the thing to suit yourself," said the captain's friend. "All I know is that after almost forgetting about MacVeagh I got a letter from him from London yesterday. A rather mysterious letter on Lady Somebody's stationery. It read something like this: 'The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Thanks for the flowers. And three cheers, me lad, for the British Empire.'"