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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: invested in your head, he! he! so I am bound to look after you. There,
come round in the evening and bring your principal with you!'
" 'Would you mind telling me, if there is no harm in asking, what was
the good of my birth certificate in this business?' I asked, when the
little old man and I stood on the doorstep.
"Jean-Esther Van Gobseck shrugged his shoulders, smiled maliciously,
and said, 'What blockheads youngsters are! Learn, master attorney (for
learn you must if you don't mean to be taken in), that integrity and
brains in a man under thirty are commodities which can be mortgaged.
After that age there is no counting on a man.'
"And with that he shut the door.
Gobseck |
