Adventure's End

Los Angeles last week celebrated the homecoming of Douglas Gorce Corrigan, who few months before left a workaday mechanic's job to flivver off into the sky, blarneyed his way to Dublin and back and became the most fabulous escapist of his time. Back down from the sky, he came, after a triumphal tour of 44 cheering cities, looking as modest as Lindbergh, when he stepped out of his little ship at Glendale airport.

But then strange things started to happen. "Drive slower, so everybody can see," the chauffeur heard Corrigan say as the procession started for City Hall. When the welcoming parade was over, Douglas Corrigan had his appraisal ready: "What? . . . only two hours and fifteen minutes. ... In Kansas City the parade was two hours and forty minutes." Down at the Hall Corrigan got a shiny gold medal. "This is a pretty good medal," he vouchsafed to Mayor Frank L. Shaw. Then he added: "Some of the others were better."

But the real surprise came during a mass interview in the Ambassador Hotel, where Douglas Corrigan was assigned a double suite with no less a roomie than Governor Frank F. Merriam. While Governor Merriam took phone calls ("Mr. Corrigan's suite. Mr. Merriam speaking. . . ."), Douglas Corrigan admonished woolgathering reporters to listen more sharply and hold their tongues, refused to repeat answers to questions. When the ticklish interview was over, Reporter Agness Underwood of the Herald & Express ducked into Corrigan's half of the suite to telephone her story in time for her paper's next edition. "Who's that in my room?" growled Corrigan like all three bears. American Airlines Pressagent Carl Anderson, whose employers squired Corrigan's tour, told him. "Well, get her out," said Corrigan. Pressagent Anderson tried to explain. "Listen here, you," barked Corrigan, "when I tell you to do something, you jump." Anderson fetched Miss Underwood away from Corrigan's phone, but Governor Merriam, who comes up for reelection this fall, came to the rescue. "Little lady," said he, "you may use my phone any time you wish."

Later that afternoon, Hero Corrigan headed another parade, this one for school children. It was during this that close observers got their widest eye-opener. One part of the line of march led through a barren stretch along Western Avenue. Perched on the folded top of the official car sat Corrigan, bowing grandly right and left and not a soul on the sidewalks to bow to.

Next day, Corrigan made a few public cracks about his parson uncle, the Rev. S. Fraser Langford. Stories about him "teaching me navigation and me living in his home are a lot of hooey. . . . The guy . . . started sending me cables to appear in ... night clubs, . . . and him a preacher, at that." Day later, at San Francisco City Hall, beside Mayor Angelo Rossi, he noted the Irishmen on the reception committee (Quinn, Riordan, Casey, Murphy, Reilly) : ". . . From the names ... I figured I was back in Ireland. And here I always thought you were all Eyetalians up here." The crowd tittered uncertainly, then Corrigan said his last word: "You came to laugh at me and I came to laugh at you, so I guess we're even."

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