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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: capered among the gold, till I threatened to strangle him if he made a
sound or wasted time. In his joy he did not notice at first the table
where the diamonds lay. I flung myself upon these, and deftly filled
the pockets of my sailor jacket and trousers with the stones. Ah!
Heaven, I did not take the third of them. Gold ingots lay underneath
the table. I persuaded my companion to fill as many bags as we could
carry with the gold, and made him understand that this was our only
chance of escaping detection abroad.
" 'Pearls, rubies, and diamonds might be recognized,' I told him.
"Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take more than two
thousand livres weight of gold, which meant six journeys across the
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