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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: position of every piece, however insignificant, upon the board; and it
so happened that at the mention of that 'nice old man,' an ominous
tinkling sounded in his ears. One evening, therefore, Maxime seated
himself among the book-shelves in the dimly lighted back room,
reconnoitred the seven or eight customers through the chink between
the green curtains, and took the little coach-builder's measure. He
gauged the man's infatuation, and was very well satisfied to find that
the varnished doors of a tolerably sumptuous future were ready to turn
at a word from Antonia so soon as his own fancy had passed off.
" 'And that other one yonder?' asked he, pointing out the stout fine-
looking elderly man with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. 'Who is
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