The end of August and early September yielded the pathetic _Death of Pierrot_ that seems a prophecy of his own near end on which he was now brooding night and day. His strength failed him for a Cover design, so the powerful _Fourth Tableau of “Das Rheingold”_ had to be used as a cover for the October _Savoy No. 5_. The _Death of Pierrot_ is wonderful for the hush a-tiptoe of its stealthy-footed movement and the sense of the passion of Pierrot, as it is remarkable for the unusual literary beauty of its written legend. [Illustration: COVER DESIGN FOR “THE SAVOY” _NO_. 7.] [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE TO “PIERROT OF THE MINUTE”] September brought snow to Boscombe, which boded ill for Beardsley’s winter. It was in this September that Leonard Smithers, opened his new offices at 4 and 5 Royal Arcade, Bond Street, whither he had moved from the first offices of _The Savoy_ at Effingham House, Arundel Street, Strand; and it was now from his office and shop in the Royal Arcade that he proposed to Beardsley the collecting of his best works already done, and their publication in an _Album of Fifty Drawings_, to appear in the Autumn. The scheme, which greatly delighted Beardsley in his suffering state, would hold little bad omen in its suggestion of the end of a career to a man who had himself just drawn the _Death of Pierrot_. It roused him to the congenial effort of drawing the _Cover for A Book of Fifty Drawings_. The fifty drawings were collected and chosen with great care and huge interest by Beardsley, and this makes it clear that he had drawn about this time, in or before September, the beautifully designed if somewhat suggestive _Bookplate of the Artist_ for himself which appeared later as almost the last of the Fifty Drawings. In spite of Beardsley’s excitement and enthusiasm, however, the book dragged on to near Christmas time, owing largely to the delay caused by the difficulties that strewed Vallance’s path in drawing up and completing the iconography. It is a proof of the extraordinary influences which trivial and unforeseen acts may have upon a man’s career that the moving of Smithers to the Royal Arcade greatly extended Beardsley’s public, as his latest work was at once on view to passers-by who frequented this fashionable resort.