Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg descrying¹ no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his enlargement, Mr Pancks suffered desperately² from self-reproaches. If it had not been for those infallible figures which proved that Arthur, instead of pining in imprisonment³, ought to be promenading⁴ in a carriage and pair, and that Mr Pancks, instead of being restricted to his clerkly wages, ought to have from three to five thousand pounds of his own at his immediate⁵ disposal, that unhappy arithmetician would probably have taken to his bed, and there have made one of the many obscure persons who turned their faces to the wall and died, as a last sacrifice to the late Mr Merdle’s greatness. Solely⁶ supported by his unimpugnable calculations, Mr Pancks led an unhappy and restless life; constantly carrying his figures about with him in his hat, and not only going over them himself on every possible occasion, but entreating⁷ every human being he could lay hold of to go over them with him, and observe what a clear case it was. Down in Bleeding Heart Yard there was scarcely an inhabitant of note to whom Mr Pancks had not imparted his demonstration⁸, and, as figures are catching⁹, a kind of cyphering measles¹⁰ broke out in that locality, under the influence of which the whole Yard was light-headed.