men who personated them gave a capital
rendering of supers suffering from stage-fever. Wednesday is memorable
in the history of the stage, but we would forget it if we could.

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CHAPTER XXIX.

PETTIGREW'S DREAM.

My dream (said Pettigrew) contrasts sadly with those of my young
friends. They dream of revenge, but my dream is tragic. I see my editor
writing my obituary notice. This is how it reads:

Mr. Pettigrew, M.A., whose sad death is recorded in another column, was
in his forty-second year (not his forty-fourth, as stated in the evening
papers), and had done a good deal of Jubilee work before he accepted the
commission that led to his death. It is an open secret that he wrote
seventy of the Jubilee sketches which have appeared in this paper. The
pamphlet now selling in the streets for a penny, entitled "Jubilees of
the Past," was his. He wrote the introductory chapter to "Fifty Years of
Progress," and his "Jubilee Statesmen" is now in a second edition. The
idea of a collection of Jubilee odes was not his, but the publisher's.
At the same time, his friends and relatives attach no blame to them. Mr.
Pettigrew shivered when the order was given to him, but he accepted it,
and the general impression among those who knew him was that a man who
had survived "Jubilee Statesmen" could do anything. As it turns out, we
had overestimated Mr. Pettigrew's powers of endurance.

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As "The Jubilee Odes" will doubtless yet be collected by another hand,
little need be said here of the work. Mr. Pettigrew was to make his
collection as complete as the limited space at his disposal (two
volumes) would allow; the only original writing in the book being a
sketch of the various schemes suggested for the celebration of the
Jubilee. It was this sketch that killed him. On the morning of the 27th,
when he intended beginning it, he rose at an unusually early hour,
and was seen from the windows of the house pacing the garden in an
apparently agitated state of mind. He ate no breakfast. One of his
daughters states that she noticed a wild look in his eyes during the
morning meal; but, as she did not remark on it at the time, much stress
need not be laid on this. The others say that he was unusually quiet and
silent. All, however, noticed one thing. Generally, when he had literary
work to do, he was anxious to begin upon his labors, and spent little
time at the breakfast-table. On this occ