The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: editors in the morning, and prowled about the lobby of the theatres at
night. "Think of my oil, dear friend; I have no interest in it--bit of
good fellowship, you know!" "Gaudissart, jolly dog!" Such was the
first and the last phrase of all his allocutions. He begged for the
bottom lines of the final columns of the newspapers, and inserted
articles for which he asked no pay from the editors. Wily as a
supernumerary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake as an errand-boy
who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling letters, flattered
the self-love of editors-in-chief, and did them base services to get
his articles inserted. Money, dinners, platitudes, all served the
purpose of his eager activity. With tickets for the theatre, he bribed
 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |