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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: long and sharp claws, and you have them deep in the butter.'
" 'Just let me speak, or we shall not have time to operate. I hit on
the idea as soon as I heard the news. I positively saw Mme. de
Nucingen crying; she is afraid for her fortune.'
" 'Poor little thing!' said the old Alsacien Jew, with an ironical
expression. 'Well?' he added, as du Tillet was silent.
" 'Well. At my place I have a thousand shares of a thousand francs in
our concern; Nucingen handed them over to me to put on the market, do
you understand? Good. Now let us buy up a million of Nucingen's paper
at a discount of ten or twenty per cent, and we shall make a handsome
percentage out of it. We shall be debtors and creditors both;
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