The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: working drawings and specifications, pay- rolls, etc. In addition
to its door, fastened at night with a padlock, and its one glass
window, secured by a ten-penny nail, the shanty had a flap-window,
hinged at the bottom. When this was propped up with a barrel
stave it made a counter from which to pay the men, the paymaster
standing inside.
Babcock was sitting on a keg of dock spikes inside this working
shanty some days after he had discovered Tom's identity, watching
his bookkeeper preparing the pay-roll, when a face was thrust
through the square of the window. It was not a prepossessing
face, rather pudgy and sleek, with uncertain, drooping mouth, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: "Madame, here comes your husband!"
"Have I a husband?" and with those words she fled away out of
sight.
"Well," cried the Count, "dinner is growing cold.--Come,
monsieur."
Thereupon I followed the master of the house into the dining-
room. Dinner was served with all the luxury which we have learned
to expect in Paris. There were five covers laid, three for the
Count and Countess and their little daughter; my own, which
should have been HIS; and another for the canon of Saint-Denis,
who said grace, and then asked:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: To do the little gentleman justice, he WAS wet. His feather
hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping
like an umbrella, and from the ends of his mustaches the water was
running into his waistcoat pockets and out again like a mill
stream.
"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, "I'm very sorry, but, I
really can't."
"Can't what?" said the old gentleman.
"I can't let you in, sir--I can't, indeed; my brothers would
beat me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do you
want, sir?"
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