Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

The Progress of an Epidemic

That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a
physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity
and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once
made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on
people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most
unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly established by
experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. A
blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if
the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent
disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close
confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is
communicable.

As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar,
so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused
the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was
deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear. There never
was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man
as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but
everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared.

Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated
halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men
as on the Stock Exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the
small grocery and general trade in a snug little shop at the crack
end of the Yard, at the top of the steps, with her little old
father and Maggy acting as assistants, habitually held forth about
him over the counter in conversation with her customers. Mr
Plornish, who had a small share in a small builder's business in
the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the tops of scaffolds
and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell him as Mr Merdle
was the one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of that
which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much as
we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist, sole lodger
of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by the
savings which were the result of his simple and moderate life, for
investment in one of Mr Merdle's certain enterprises. The female
Bleeding Hearts, when they came for ounces of tea, and
hundredweights of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That how,
ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in
the line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons. That
how she was as handsome a lady, ma'am, as lived, no matter wheres,
and a busk like marble itself. That how, according to what they
was told, ma'am, it was her son by a former husband as was took
into the