The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: Juste lent Marcas two hundred francs in gold, the product of two
watches bought on credit, and pawned at the Mont-de-Piete. For my
part, I had said nothing of the six shirts and all necessary linen,
which cost me no more than the pleasure of asking for them from a
forewoman in a shop whom I had treated to Musard's during the
carnival.
Marcas accepted everything, thanking us no more than he ought. He only
inquired as to the means by which we had got possession of such
riches, and we made him laugh for the last time. We looked on our
Marcas as shipowners, when they have exhausted their credit and every
resource at their command it fit out a vessel, must look on it as it
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