prosperity, continued increase
of riches, and continued things in general.
    Bishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates gradually
floated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr. Merdle. That
gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth until the soul of the chief butler
glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the rest, and became of no
account in the stream of people on the grand staircase. Mrs. Merdle was at home,
the best of the jewels were hung out to be seen, Society got what it came for,
Mr. Merdle drank twopennyworth of tea in a corner and got more than he wanted.
    Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody, and
whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he came upon Mr. Merdle drinking
his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm.
    Mr. Merdle started. »Oh! It's you!«
    »Any better to-day?«
    »No,« said Mr. Merdle, »I am no better.«
    »A pity I didn't see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow, or let me
come to you.«
    »Well!« he replied. »I will come to-morrow as I drive by.«
    Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and as
Mr. Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon it to the
Physician. Bar said, there was a certain point of mental strain beyond which no
man could go; that the point varied with various textures of brain and
peculiarities of constitution, as he had had occasion to notice in several of
his learned brothers; but, the point of endurance passed by a line's breadth,
depression and dyspepsia ensued. Not to intrude on the sacred mysteries of
medicine, he took it, now (with the Jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), that
this was Merdle's case? Bishop said that when he was a young man, and had fallen
for a brief space into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit which
all young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had frequently been
sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an over-taxed intellect,
upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up by the good woman in whose
house he at that time lodged, with a glass of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered
sugar, acted like a charm. Without presuming to