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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: how he could best incite a clamor against his chief without
compromising himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word
of greeting. Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker
thought it amusing to pretend that he had won it.
Bixiou [mimicking Phellion's voice]. "Gentlemen, I salute you with a
collective how d'ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner at
the Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself. Is that
dinner to include the clerks who are dismissed?"
Poiret. "And those who retire?"
Bixiou. "Not that I care, for it isn't I who pay." [General
stupefaction.] "Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear him
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