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  sedu-
lously avoid,  he  had  frequently  been  sensible  of  a  depression,  arising
as  he  supposed  from  an  overtaxed  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  offer  so  simple  a  remedy
to  the  consideration  of  so  profound  a  professor  of  the  great  healing  art,
lie  would  venture  to  enquire  whether  the  strain,  being  by  way  of  intri-
cate calculations,  the  spirits  might  not  (humanly  speaking)  be  restored
to  their  tone  by  a  gentle  and  yet  generous  stimulant  ?

"  Yes,"  said  the  physician,  "  yes,  you  arc  both  right.  But  I  may  as
well  tell  you  that  I  can  find  nothing  the  matter  with  Mr.  Merdle.
