Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel], December 08, 1907, Image 55

About Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
Mr. Costigan's Expeditious Life
I 'I' is now morn years than a middle-aged woman
will cvor admit having seen that Matthew Mark
Luke John Costigan left the Emerald Islo in a
high dudgeon and a low, foul-bottomed whllop
ing little vessel that usually made (he run
from one side of the orean to the other In a couple of
months or so; provided Bho had favoring winds and
Ihe stayed sober.
When they bad loft the receding shores, mist-bound,
miles behind, and there was no chance of 'boullng
;'.iip und putting back, Mr. Matthew Mark Luke John
CQStlgan took a firm grip on the rigging and, climb
ing up on the rail, began to tell the royal family, in
dividually and collectively, what he thought of it.
l«' threw in a few scattered remarks In general atient
I'arihiment, landlords, rents and similar unpleasant
< viis; and the whole tenor of his diatribe was such.
Hint the captain left the wheel and came down to
listen to him. Tho captain had been using the same
objurgatory vocabulary for more years than ten, and
this was an opportunity for improvement not to bo
missed.
Some eight weeks later he landod in New York.
Ax they sailed up the harbor, so eager was he to rest
foot upon the soil of that glorious country where all
men are born free and equal (even though they don't
stay that way more than a couple of minutes after
birtb), and where dollars lie about in the streets like
potatoes in a bill, that he fell over the bow; and if it
hadn't been been that the anchor was there catted,
this story might never have been written.
As it was, he made his way over the side on a ropo
ladder to the dock and thence into the emigrant
Ktable; and, by the time he at length got through con
vincing a lot of prying, obtuse, obstinate and inquisi
tive persons that he was capable of supporting him
self and didn't have any contagious diseases other
than those natural to one who has lived in a peat bog,
and that the Home for the Destitute was not the apex
of his ambitions, ho was at last permitted to go out
into the street. But someone else had already picked
up all tho dollars, and the only thing left for him to
do was to take a Job carrying bricks np a ladder that
ieaned against the side of an unfinished stack in
Hoboken.
As be was open-handed, open-hearted, a free
spender, a free drinker and a free thinker, and as
eager for a row as is a dog for a bone, he soon
achieved a degree of popularity that bore heavily
i!pon his personal success; for he found that in a
country where offices are elective, and laws lax, there
is a great opportunity for a man of brains to live
without working.
Mr. Costigan, from carrying the hod, came to car
rying the billy. Then he was advanced to the posi
tion of roundsman; and, as the tribute that he levied
v aud the toll that he took were of gratifying largeness,
be became a lieutenant, and finally a captain.
Arriving at this eminence, he looked about him;
and his now experienced eyes saw that a captaincy is
an effect rather than a cause. So he broke out of the
police department, and Into the Board of Aldermen;'
and thence into the contracting business, which seems
to be the height of ambition for most good politicians.
He prospered. He prospered exceedingly. For
every inch, of dirt that he put into a scar on the face
of Mother Earth that, for some reason which an all
wise Providence alone knew, required filling, he was
paid for a cubic foot. And each of his sky-blue
wagons would drive past the inspector, who counted
them a« having a different load on each appearance,
until the dirt sifted out between the bottom boards
and the driver was obliged to go back for a new
rtoiid. If Mr. Costlgan's city wagons had had dirt-
Might floors there is no knowing what his wealth
might have been. ¦< ,
Of course he .married. The woman of his choice,
espoused during billy-carrying days, had been a ser
vant-girl employed by a family residing upon Officer
Costigan's beat; and, because she chose to stay in the
arcaway and talk to Ofncer Costigan instead of cook
ing and making beds, her employers eventually de
rided that, as they had to do all the work themselves
;>nyway, they might as well do it without paying her
a salary, too. Whereat the lady in question came to
Officer Costigan and subtly implied to him that, as he
was the cause of her losing her position, it was pat
ently his duty to provide her with another by wed
ding her.
At. first Officer Costigan was obtuse and was unable
to follow her line of reasoning. But she was a large
woman with a hanti like a sack of potatoes; and bo
tUey were finally married.
She proved a good wife; for she made him a home
from which be was afraid to stay away, and to which
he was afraid to go with too little money or too much
liquor; and sho bore him one son, and then died.
He mourned her as sincerely as bis business cares
would permit, and the son, when be became old
enough, was sent away to boarding-school. Time
passed. The son grew in mind and body, while tho
father grew in wealth and influence. But there was
ibis difference between them: that while the son
began to achieve, the father began to lose, sense; and
when finally the son returned from a two years' trip
abroad that bad been put onto the tag-end of a, col
lege education much as a snapper is attached to the
lend of a whiplash, it was to find the father much
'altered.
Next Week, Eclipse of a Honeymoon nARRIET prescot spotford
The germs of the Too-Much-Money fever had fore
gathered in bis system. In an 111-advised moment, ho
had permitted himself to be cultivated by a young
society man with political aspirations. He wanted
Mr. Costlgan's Influence. Mr. Coatlgan wanted his
money. It seemed an equable division, though
neither bad for a moment intended that the other
should get that which he desired.
The young society man had taken Mr. Costigan out
to see the town. Mr. Coßtigafl had seen the town
before, many and many a time. But hitherto he had
always seen it in the uniform of the police depart
ment; now htf gazed at it from the pinnacle of a,
dress-suit; and It is surprising what a difference this
makes.
"I'll give the boys a real'treat," observed he of the
silver sjmon ; and he took Mr. Costigan and his dress
suit to a slag dinner.
The affair broke up at 3.47 a. m., with the diners,
formed In platoons, endeavoring to break arc-lights
with cantaloupes for five dollars a corner.
And after this Costigan was considered a social
favorite.
He took to riding about in cabs. Every stage
doorman In tho city knew him, and made him wel
come, and almost every night he fed a large batsh of
excessively hungry chorus girls with variegated hair
and Sybarltish desires who, as soon as they had fin
ished eating, would bid him good-by and go home and
go to bed; for chorus girls have to Bleep once in a while,
popular conviction to the contrary notwithstanding.
He went to the races in a large red automobile, driven
by a Frenchman with a name which Mr. Costigan
couldn't hare pronounced if you'd given him Manhat
tan Island. He was a first-nighter, a seeond-nighter
and an every other nighter. He Joined all the clnbs
that he could get into, and they were not a few. . His
bed never knew him until the milkman had come and
gone, and his sartorial predilections would have made
the lilies of the field blush in utter shame. Violent
blues, riotous reds, passionate purples, turgid yellows,
he affected constantly and consistently. In a bell
crowned top-bat of the highest luster, sllk-llned
frock-coat, lavender trousers, white spats, patent
leather shoes, a striped shirt adorned with a diamond
of so many karats that he had lost count, a vest of
red, yellow, blue, green and cinnamon plaid, and hi*
large, lumpy hands stuck into a pair of white kid
gloves, he' was an object that the cartoonists fairly
loved.
And thus it was that his son, on his return from
Europe, found him. And Costigan pere had accom
plished It all in only two years!
As the father had an important engagement with a
theatrical manager who wanted him to back a show,
he failed to meet his son at the pier. And as sundry
other engagements followed in quick succession it
was not until quarter-past five on the following morn
ing that they finally encountered one another. At the
hour named the son was awakened from sleep by
hearing a cab stop in front of the house. After a
long interval there was a scratching at the keyhole
of the front door.
After another long' interval the door was flung open
with a bang. And then some one came in and walked
up one flight of stairs five times; and at the sixth at
tempt managed to stay at the top only by lying down
on bis face and grabbing the balustrade with both
hands. -
Now, the son himself had from time to time scat
tered a few wild oats. But he had learned to appre
ciate the potent fact that wild oats grow no sort of a
marketable crop, and that the time spent in sowing
them is wasted, while that devoted to reaping is worse
than wasted. And to come back to find his father's
oat bag open at both ends and the gentleman in ques
tion sowing with both hands and scratching with his
feet made him naturally and becomingly wroth.
However, he realized the futility of present dis
cussion. Bo be rolled his father, dress suit and all,
Into the bath tub, ran the cold water over him for a
while and then put him to bed, with a pitcher of Ice
water convenient to his hand and a dose of broruo in
a glass beside it.
On the following day the father's breakfast and the
eon's lunch coincided.
"Ar-rh, Tim, mo bye, 'tis gla^d 01 am t' see ye!"
.exclaimed Costigan pere as he sat down at the table
and drank four glasses of Ice water in quick succes
sion. He winked, sportively and complacently. " 'Til
a divvle ay a head Oi hoy on me t'-day," be an
nounced, in cheerful Belf-pity. "Be hivins, me
toongue's like a (Jure mat."
His son, over his soup, was gazing at him in in
finite disgust.
"Oi was sorry not t' hoy met ye at th" dock," con
tinued the elder man, blithely, "but Oi had a inga
agemint." He winked again. "Don" axe me If 'twas
a la-ady, because 01 don* want t' hoy t' till yez no
lies."
Costlgan tils gazed at him cuttingly.
"You're a gay dog, aren't you?" he queried, iron
ically.
His father nodded with great satisfaction. "So they
till me," be returned, complacently.
"You're certainly a giddy young sprig," observed
the son in the same unrecognized sarcasm.
" 'The lolfe ay th' par-rty,' they calls me, Timmy,"
returned his father. "An' be hivins, 01 ha-ate t' talk
aboot mesilf , but Oi'm th' grea-atest fat'rlte wld th'
wimmen Oi iver knowed!"
His son saw that in uttering sarcasms he was wast*
ing bis sweetness on the desert air.
"You're an old ass!" he declared, bluntly, "You, a
doddering old man with round feet and hands like
hams, and no more sense than a hard-boiled egg, to
go on like this! You make me sick!"
For an Instant Mr. Costigan stared at bis son
truculently. Then, slowly, his mismated features ex
panded Into a wide smile.
"Ay Oi didn't know thot thtm reraar-rks ye has just
made was prompted be jealousy," he said, "Old lep
over th' ta-able an' ta-ake # crack at ye, ye young
shpalpeent But 'tis on'y invloua ye ar're." He took a
LOS ANGELES HERALD SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT.
•poouftil of oatmeal and made a wry face. "But
niver moind, TUn," he continued. "Oi'll ta-itUe ye
roond wld me a bit, an' If yoz watch me^keerful an'
doos as 01 dooß Oi'll hoy ye In t' shumri. Hit yit, be
hivins!"
"Have me in it?" exclaimed his son. "Not If I sipcs
you first: Why, I went Into it and came, out again
long ;ip:o; and it's too bad you didn't do the name.
What, ilo you mean by It?" he demanded helplessly.
"How long are you going to keep it up. I low many
years will it take you to grow v convolution In that.
thins; you call a br;iin? Why — how— what '." He
stopped iv sheer impotence.
< His father ceased trying to eat and eyed him with
mingled eruotionX Slowly be, began to gel angry.
But suddenly his eye chanced to meet tho dial of tho
clock and be rose hastily from bis chair.
"Be hivins!" he cried, "Oi ca-ame near fergettin' a
inga-agetnint 01 had f ta-nke th' Merry Maidens
Burlesque Comp'ny out t "dinner!" He rose to his
feet. "Old lave ye go wid me on'y ye're too dom
frish!" and he withdrew, with great dignity, to the
hall, where the butler assisted him info a long, cream
colored coat with a black velvet collar and buttons
as big as saucers.
His son waited until he heard the front door slam.
Then he sighed and shook his head sadly.
"Well," he philosophized, "there's no fool like an
old fool. I wonder what he'll do next! "
From the day of tho return of Costigan flls the dove
of peace was afraid to come within ten city blocks^ of
the paternal menage, for of course the son remon
strated and of course the father resented. And as the
son's remonstrances grew more impatient and more
biting so did the father's resentment wax more wrath
ful and indignant. It finally ended In the father at
tempting to administer physical chastisement and the
son gently laying the father down on the floor and
sitting on him until he recovered, although he almost
died of apoplexy first.
Costigan flls was in the next three weeks disin
herited fourteen times, which was as often as he and
tala father met in that interval. Obstinate, bellicose,
Mr. Costigan continued along his »hosen pathway of
aged adolescence. Aggrieved, indignant, disgusted, his
son continued to do bis best to wean his father from
the error of his ways and show him tho folly of his
course. And the nerving men got to he most adept at
dodging plates and glasses and learned to comply
with Mr. Costigan's every wish even before he him
self knew what it was.
At length Mr. Costigan came in to dinner one night
and, carefully spreading open his coat to show a vest
that wasn't large'enough to carry the whole pattern,
smiled defiantly across at bis son.
"Oi've news f'r yez, Tim," he said, in warlike
amiability. "Oi'll brea-ak it to yez gently because Oi
know 'twill be a shock t' ye. Ol'm goin' to bo marrlt
agin."
Mr. Costigan evidently expected the announcement
to create a sensation, and he was not disappointed.
His con for a moment sat transfixed, his eyes staring
In almost uncomprehending alarm and wonder and
dismay.
"WHAT!" he fairly howled.
Costigan pere nodded. "Yls," he returned com
placently. "Ol'm p;oin' to be marrit agin. 'Tie a
sha-ame f'r me. a». th' very prime o1o 1 me loife. t 1 bt
single an' alone an' a bachelder. An'," he added, with
anything but. bumble humility, "mebbe 'twill brea-ak
me o' me divviish wa-aj k an' shteady me down a bit."
Mis son had partially recovered himself.
"And wbo's tho lady?" be demanded. "Who's the
female kidnapper of second childhood that wants your
money?"
Mr. Costipan bumped about in his chair and shook
hi« tist. acrosß the table wrathfully.
"Don't ye sphake that wa-ay o' me flansay!" he
howled belligerently, "'f Oi'll go to th' flure wid ye!
Th' la-ady who'll hoy th' honor o' being my wife an'
tir dishonor o' bein'.yure mlther is Miss Nora Ma
lone."
"What!" yelled the son, "your stenographer?"
His father nodded complacently. "Th' sa-ame," he
replied. "An' a doni good wan she Is, too. She can
ta-akc things down fasther m 01 c'n talk thim, bo
hivins."
"I knew you were a chump!" cried bis son, "but I
never dreamed that It was s6 bad that It would carry
you, a doddering old man of sixty-live, to marrying a
girl of twenty! At first I waa afraid that you'd get,
"arrested, but when I thought It over I knew that
with the pull you have you couldn't if you tried. And
so I settled in my own mind that the worst that could
happen to you would be the D. T.'s. But this !"
He shook his head in mingled rage and chagrin, sor
row and disgust. "To think," he mutteped to him
self, "that an old man with one foot In the grave
could make of himself such a complete and utter ass."
His father, gazing down at him from the roseate-
"A BA-ABY! WELL, OI'LL BE !"
clouded heights of the divine passion, refused to get
angry even at this.
"Ar-ro ye acquainted wld th' la-ady?" he demanded.
His son shook his head.
"Then phwha-at th' divvle do yez know about it? "
he inquired, pertinently.
His son eyed him.
"I know you," he returned. "If you weren't an
idiot, you wouldn't, marry her. You'd adopt her. And
if she weren't worse than an idiot she wouldn't marry
you. t§he'd marry some one she could love."
His father threw out his plaid vest, arrogantly.
"Oh, Oi do' know!" he said. "Oi'm a illegible party,
Oi guess. Oi ain't so ould nor bo oogly. Gur-rls
has loved me befure an' will ag'ln, be hivins! So
why not this wan?"
His son started to speak. Then, realizing the futil
ity of talk, merely stared at him.
"When Is the ceremony going to take place?" he
asked at length.
"Oi ain't decided yit," returned his father, molli
fied because the question was unaccompanied by
either objurgation or reprimand. "OJ've got t' hoy me
fling fur-rst. 'Tis now Joon. Say in Novlmber. Thin
Oi'll hoy a bachelder dinner an' we go to Monty
Car-rlo an' Noopoort f'r our honeymoon." He smiled
seraphically.
His son kicked the table leg impotently and glow
ered down upon his grinning parent.
"All I wish," he said, savagely, "Is that you were
my son ir.stead of my father!"
For a week, almost without interruption, Costigan
Porter Emerson Browne
flls pursued through the ramifications of his mind
vague, indeterminate shapes or Ideas and plots and
plans. One by one he ran them down and caught
them to and that his clutching fingers held nothing
And that he was a* bad off as ever. His father would
not hear reason. In point of fact, he would not hear
anything, because whenever his r;on tried to speak
to him he would immediately begin to sing, and
would continue with his vocal exercises until his son,
100, was silent. In this way he achieved mental con
tentment because he never knew what his sou called
him; and he likewise accorded considerable, -comfort
to his son, who, under the cover of his father's voice,
'•ould tell him a lot of things that he wouldn't other
wise have dared to.
At the end of seven days, then, the son decided
that the only thing to do was to go to see the girl.
Maybe, he thought, ho could make her sec' reason.
Or perhaps lie could buy her off, for ho had consider
able money of his own. Of course she would prob
ably be dictatorial and aggressive and impertinent
and ill bred und flashy, and would assert and protest
that. shR loved his father and that the money made no
difference.
H seemed indeed a forlorn hope — a very forlorn
hope. But the son made up his mind to take It.
And he did.
A month later the elder Costigan, clad In a suit of
ultramarine pajamas, was seated on tbe edge of his
bed sucking a lemon, when at 3 o'clock in the after
noon r district messenger came with a letter for him.
When It was spread open to his gaze he blinked
hard. Then he scowled. Then he closed one eye.
Then he gave a yell that brought the servants run
ning from all over the house, and began to hop around
the room to the destruction of furniture and brlc-a
brac. An ill-advised kick at a tumbling statuette of
the Verms of Milo caused him to suspend operations
and to sit down on the floor and nurse his outraged
toe.
At length his man surreptitiously picked up th«
letter from where it lay upon the floor behind hla
master's ultramarine back. He read:
Dear Father: —
Nora and I were married this afternoon. Knowing
you and your disposition, we have decided that It is
best for all of us, for my wife and myself,, to go
abroad for a year. When we come back we shall
hope to find you a reformed and repentant man in
stead of a luminous exponent of the theory of second
childhood.
With a lot of love and all the respect possible un
der the circumstances,
* Your son,
TIM.
P. S.— You certainly aren't lacking in aplomb. The
first Nora had heard of her engagement to you was
when I asked her about it. When you become engaged
hereafter don't neglect to inform the lady.
Mr. Costigan divided the next fortnight between
an attempt to locate his son that he might send him
a cablegram telling him what he thought of him, and
an effort to no phrase that message that it might not
be refused at tbe cable office. In both endeavors he
failed, and' signally. And he thereupon embarked
once again into the Expedition*; Life, though before
so doing he made a new will disinheriting his son ab
solutely from all ahare whatsoever in his possessions
and leaving the money for the establishing of a brew
ery which would provide free beer for the poor.
On a bright June afternoon one year later, just as
Mr. Costigan was about to set out for his offices, an
electric hansom rolled up In front of the house and
stopped. And there dismounted from it a tall, well
set-up, good-looking young fellow and a lithe, dark
haired girl, who carried in her arms a bundle of lace
aud linen and ribbons and frills and furbelows. '
Mr. Costigan, with his hand on the doorknob and
his foot in tbe air, gasped:
"Tis Tim. be hivins!" he cried. "An' Nora!"
For a moment surprise obsessed him; and then, as
slowly his feeling of amazement died and there was
born in its place a great and growing anger that
surged through him, from bald head to round feet, he
charged wrathfully down the front ateps, shrieking
like a stricken rhinoceros.
The two by the hansom faced him unafraid. And
as be came near them his erstwhile stenographer, with
a deft little mother motion, uncovered the bundle that
ihe carried and held it out to him, whereat he stopped
short in his tracks, mouth agape, and gazed with
wondering eyes from which the wrath had now fled
as completely as though it had never been.
"A ba-aby, be bivlns!" he exclaimed in hushed,
thick tones. "A ba-aby! Well, Oi'll be !"
The mother nudged the heap of lace and ribbons
with one slender finger.
"Say 'grandpa,' sweetheart," she commanded,
softly.
"Glug, glug," returned the bundle, amiably; and
the mother smiled up, proudly.
Mr. Costigan still stood staring down upon the tiny,
pink-whito face before him. Then, after a long, long
interval, his little gray-blue eyes blinked a few times
and be rubbed the back of one white kid glove across
his hard chin.
"Ta-ake th' kid into th' house, Nora," he said.
"Th' nolght air plays tb" divvle wid ba-abies."
The son, going into his father's room that evening
at 10 a'clock to bid him good-night, found that gentle
man standing In the middle of a heap of ornate and 1
gaudy apparel. In one hand be held a 3mall piece of
plaid vest and in the other a picture of hie dead wife".
"Ol'm a gran'pa, Honorla," he said to the picture,
as his son, unheard, entered the room. "An' If Ol'm
a gran'pa 'tis a eincb Oi'm ould. An'- if Oi'm ould
'tis me thot sh'd be splndin' me avenln's at home wld
me dudheen in me. fa-ace an" me feet In th' fireplace."
He stopped to absord the full effect of his own self
directed logic.
"But," he added, suddenly, as he squared his heavy
shoulders, "though I may be ould an" a gran'pa, Ol'm
not so dommed ould but what OI c'n go out an'
wrastle up a few more dollars f'r tb>' kid ylfc?-be
hivins!"
And that night, in the small hours, the dark-haired
wife was awakened from the light mother-sleep to
find him. clad in dignified white pajamas, standing
beside the bed, examining by the faint light of the
night lamp the curled roseleaf of her baby's hand.