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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: did them then and there; he assumed no importance, he made no boast,
he did not complain of ingratitude. He did them in the hope that his
patron would put him in a position to be elected deputy; Marcas wished
for nothing but a loan that might enable him to purchase a house in
Paris, the qualification required by law. Richard III. asked for
nothing but his horse.
In three years Marcas had made his man--one of the fifty supposed
great statesmen who are the battledores with which two cunning players
toss the ministerial portfolios exactly as the man behind the puppet-
show hits Punch against the constable in his street theatre, and
counts on always getting paid. This man existed only by Marcas, but he
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