The Halifax Comet. — 1900-08-25 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

THE HALIFAX COMET. 15, Waterhouse Street.  MIK Maxtor of gittleioti.  AALDERMAN PETTIGREW waited in his study at Riverview. It was a damp, raw evening in October, and he sat complacently gazing into the fire. Had Alderman Pettigrew been an imaginative man, which he was not, he would doubtless have seen spme very pleasant things in the glowing coals. Even as it was his meditations were evidently of a pleasing nature, judging from the expression of his face. There was no light in the room beyond the ruddy flicker of the fire, and as Alderman Pettigrew was very bald and very redfaced, besides being clean shaven, he looked absurdly like a gigantic baby smiling in his sleep. His eyes were halfclosed, and as each pleasant thought flitted through his brain, his fat face puckered up in little wrinkles, thus sustaining the illusion. A proportionately large feeding-bottle would have completed it. There is no doubt that Alderman Pettigrew had good reasons for being well contented with life. He had good health, a buxom wife, a fine son, a pretty daughter, no particular trouble, and somewhere about a thousand a year. Was it possible that there could be a crumpled rose-leaf in such a feather-bed as this ! Of course there was something: there invariably is, and it was in pleasant anticipation of the removal of that some thing that Alderman Pettigrew sat waiting to-night. For many years past the borough of Littlejoy had looked upon Mr. Josiah Pettigrew as a certain future Mayor, but until now the worthy Alderman had steadfastly refused the honour. Yielding at length, however, to the solicitations of his wife, who perceived that if her husband became Mayor she would become "the Mayoress," Mr. Pettigrew had finally consented to step forth at the head of his fellow-burgesses and stand a fire of beggars' petitions for a whole twelvemonths, in return for being privileged to wear a scarlet robe and a cockad hat, and the honour of being "your worshipped" by butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers.  Mrs. Pettigrew having thus gained one point, had followed up her advantage, and prevailed upon her husband to commission Mr. Pimm, the solicitor, to hunt up the Pettigrew pedigree, with the vague idea on the part of Mrs. P. of coats-of-arms, restored titles, and gain of caste generally. As she truly observed, Mr. Pettigrew must have descended from somebody, and that some• body may have been Julius Csar or Henry the Confessor (Mrs. Pettigrew was a trifle shaky in history) for all they knew. Of course, on the other hand, it may have been a murderer or a Wesleyan (Mrs. P. was Church), but in that case they could keep it quiet, and Pimm would say nothing. Mr. Pettigrew had been rather taken with the notion himself, and Mr. Pimm, of the firm of Snargle and Pimm, Mr. Pettigrew's own solicitors, had been duly instructed to make the necessary inquiries and to spare no expense in reason. That was three months ago, and Mr. Pimm had laboured perseveringly, poring over ancient parish registers, deciphering as ancient inscriptions in rank, over-grown churchyards, interviewing Pettigrews of high degree, chatting with Pettigrews of middle-class degree, and cross-examining Pettigrews of low degree, until at last he wrote to his client from a remote Cornish ' village, saying his work was completed, and that he would, if convenient to Mr. Pettigrew, report personally tkie following evening, immediately on his arrival in Littlejoy. This letter had been received on the day previous to that on which this story opens, and Alderman Pettigrew now sat waiting for Mr. Pimm to come and, as he fondly hoped, provide him with a family tree which would enable him to say to the world, and more especially the world of Littlejoy  "I may be a self-made man, an exprovision merchant, a tradesman, if you will, but back in the days of Elizabeth my ancestors wore nalidoms and things." Alderman Pettigrew's thoughts would not have found expression in precisely