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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: man's legs by the trick I showed you--when you can hold your own
against three armed warders, feeling quite sure that you can account
for two of them before they have got out flint and steel, what is
there to be afraid of? Have not you your cane?"
"To be sure," said the man.
Paccard, nicknamed The Old Guard, Old Wide-Awake, or The Right Man--a
man with legs of iron, arms of steel, Italian whiskers, hair like an
artist's, a beard like a sapper's, and a face as colorless and
immovable as Contenson's, kept his spirit to himself, and rejoiced in
a sort of drum-major appearance which disarmed suspicion. A fugitive
from Poissy or Melun has no such serious self-consciousness and belief
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