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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: Either you will instantly abandon all your schemes, or (cost
what it may) I will denounce you to the police.'
'Ah!' replied Zero, slowly shaking his head. 'You are too
late, dear fellow! I am already at the end of all my hopes,
and fallen to be a laughing-stock and mockery. My reading,'
he added, with a gentle despondency of manner, 'has not been
much among romances; yet I recall from one a phrase that
depicts my present state with critical exactitude; and you
behold me sitting here "like a burst drum."'
'What has befallen you?' cried Somerset.
'My last batch,' returned the plotter wearily, 'like all the
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