Costigan, in his most intoxicated and
confidential moments, also evaded any replies to questions or hints
addressed to him on this subject: there was no particular secret about
it, as we have seen, who have had more than once the honor of entering
his apartments, but in the vicissitudes of a long life he had been
pretty often in the habit of residing in houses where privacy was
necessary to his comfort, and where the appearance of some visitors
would have brought him any thing but pleasure. Hence all sorts of
legends were formed by wags or credulous persons respecting his place
of abode. It was stated that he slept habitually in a watch-box in the
city; in a cab at a mews, where a cab proprietor gave him a shelter;
in the Duke of York's Column, &c., the wildest of these theories being
put abroad by the facetious and imaginative Huxter. For Huxey, when
not silenced by the company of "swells," and when in the society of
his own friends, was a very different fellow to the youth whom we have
seen cowed by Pen's impertinent airs; and, adored by his family at
home, was the life and soul of the circle whom he met, either round
the festive board or the dissecting table.
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