uch an alert carriage, with such an
animated voice and glittering eye, that for a long while at least we
were under the illusion. Hurrying about England, Ireland, and Scotland
as he was during almost the whole of the last quarter of 1868 and during
the whole of the first quarter of 1869--dividing his time not only
between Liverpool and Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Dublin and
Belfast, with continual returns to his central reading-platform in the
great Hall near Piccadilly, but visiting afterwards as well nearly
all the great manufacturing towns and nearly all the fashionable
watering-places--the wonder is now not so much that he gave in at last
to the exorbitant strain, but that he did not give in much sooner.

A single incident will suffice to show the pace at which he was going
before the overwrought system gave the first sign of its _being_
overwrought. On the evening of Thursday, the 11th of March, 1869, an
immense audience crowded the Festival Concert Room at York, the people
there having only that one opportunity of attending a Farewell Reading.
As they entered the room, each person received a printed slip of
paper, on which was read, "The audience are respectfully informed that
carriages have been ordered tonight at half-past nine. Without altering
his Reading in the least, Mr. Dickens will shorten his usual pauses
between the Parts, in order that he may leave York by train a few
minutes after that time. He has been summoned," it was added, "to
London, in connection with a late sad occurrence within the general
knowledge, but a more particular reference to which would be out of
place here." His attendance, in point of fact, was suddenly required at
the funeral of a dear friend of his in the metropolis. To the funeral he
had to go. From the poignantly irksome duty of the Reading he could not
escape. Giving the latter even as proposed, he would barely have time to
catch the up express, so as to arrive in town by the aid of rapid night
travelling, and be true to the melancholy rendezvous at the scene of his
friend's obsequies. The Readings that night were three, and they were
given in rapid succession, the Reader, after the first and second,
instead of withdrawing, as usual, for ten minutes' rest into his
retiring room at the back of the platform, merely stepping for an
instant or two behind the screen at the side of the platform, putting
his lips to some iced champagne, and stepping back at once to the
reading