The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: together to put a devil-may-care jollity into every inch of his
person. Free-handed and easy-going, he might be recognized at once as
the favorite of grisettes, the man who jumps lightly to the top of a
stage-coach, gives a hand to the timid lady who fears to step down,
jokes with the postillion about his neckerchief and contrives to sell
him a cap, smiles at the maid and catches her round the waist or by
the heart; gurgles at dinner like a bottle of wine and pretends to
draw the cork by sounding a filip on his distended cheek; plays a tune
with his knife on the champagne glasses without breaking them, and
says to the company, "Let me see you do THAT"; chaffs the timid
traveller, contradicts the knowing one, lords it over a dinner-table
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