The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: to various abject vices, gave credit for their food to
many a piece of white wreckage. He was naively over-
joyed at the idea of his old bills being paid, and he
reckoned confidently on a spell of festivities in the
cavernous grog-shop downstairs. Massy remembered
the curious, respectful looks of the "trashy" white men
in the place. His heart had swelled within him. Massy
had left Charley's infamous den directly he had realized
the possibilities open to him, and with his nose in the air.
Afterwards the memory of these adulations was a great
sadness.
 End of the Tether |