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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: "Which will you lay your money on?" asked Desroches, looking round at
an audience, surprised to find how deeply it was interested.
"A pretty story!" cried Malaga. "My dear boy, go on, I beg of you.
This goes to one's heart."
"Nothing commonplace could happen between two fighting-cocks of that
calibre," added La Palferine.
"Pooh!" cried Malaga. "I will wager my cabinet-maker's invoice (the
fellow is dunning me) that the little toad was too many for Maxime."
"I bet on Maxime," said Cardot. "Nobody ever caught him napping."
Desroches drank off a glass that Malaga handed to him.
"Mlle. Chocardelle's reading-room," he continued, after a pause, "was
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