he had been
subject to the explosion of important veins in his body after the manner of
fireworks, he had had something the matter with his lungs, he had had something
the matter with his heart, he had had something the matter with his brain. Five
hundred people who sat down to breakfast entirely uninformed on the whole
subject, believed before they had done breakfast, that they privately and
personally knew Physician to have said to Mr. Merdle, »You must expect to go
out, some day, like the snuff of a candle;« and that they knew Mr. Merdle to
have said to Physician, »A man can die but once.« By about eleven o'clock in the
forenoon, something the matter with the brain, became the favourite theory
against the field; and by twelve the something had been distinctly ascertained
to be Pressure.
    Pressure was so entirely satisfactory to the public mind, and seemed to make
everybody so comfortable, that it might have lasted all day but for Bar's having
taken the real state of the case into Court at half-past nine. This led to its
beginning to be currently whispered all over London by about one, that Mr.
Merdle had killed himself. Pressure, however, so far from being overthrown by
the discovery, became a greater favourite than ever. There was a general
moralising upon Pressure, in every street. All the people who had tried to make
money and had not been able to do it, said, There you were! You no sooner began
to devote yourself to the pursuit of wealth, than you got Pressure. The idle
people improved the occasion in a similar manner. See, said they, what you
brought yourself to by work, work, work! You persisted in working, you overdid
it, Pressure came on, and you were done for! This consideration was very potent
in many quarters, but nowhere more so than among the young clerks and partners
who had never been in the slightest danger of overdoing it. These, one and all
declared, quite piously, that they hoped they would never forget the warning as
long as they lived, and that their conduct might be so regulated as to keep off
Pressure, and preserve them, a comfort to their friends, for many years.
    But, at about the time of High 'Change, Pressure began to wane, and
appalling whispers to circulate, east, west, north, and south. At first, they
were faint, and went no further than a doubt whether Mr. Merdle's wealth would
be found to be as vast