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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: went to bed late and lay late of a morning, never showing her face at
the desk until the afternoon, some time between two and four. From the
very first her appearance was enough to draw custom. Several elderly
men in the quarter used to come, among them a retired coach-builder,
one Croizeau. Beholding this miracle of female loveliness through the
window-panes, he took it into his head to read the newspapers in the
beauty's reading-room; and a sometime custom-house officer, named
Denisart, with a ribbon in his button-hole, followed the example.
Croizeau chose to look upon Denisart as a rival. '/Monsieur/,' he said
afterwards, 'I did not know what to buy for you!'
"That speech should give you an idea of the man. The Sieur Croizeau
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