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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: him metal in return; old Spanish cannon cast in such an insane fashion
that they melted down gold and bell-metal and church plate for it, and
all the wreck of the Spanish dominion in the Indies. The specie is
slow in coming, and the dear Baron is hard up. That is all.'
" 'It is a fact,' said Werbrust; 'I am taking his paper myself at
twenty per cent discount.'
"The news spread swift as fire in a straw rick. The most contradictory
reports got about. But such confidence was felt in the firm after the
two previous suspensions, that every one stuck to Nucingen's paper.
'Palma must lend us a hand,' said Werbrust.
"Now Palma was the Keller's oracle, and the Kellers were brimful of
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