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Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools

E >> Emilie Kip Baker >> Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools

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V-M Österman, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team



SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS

FOR USE IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS

COMPILED AND ANNOTATED, WITH QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
BY
EMILIE KIP BAKER




[Illustration: Walter Scott's Library at Abbotsford]




TABLE OF CONTENTS

A LEAF IN THE STORM, _by_ Louise de la Ramee,
_from_ A Leaf in the Storm and Other Stories

CATS, _by_ Maurice Hewlett,
_from_ Earthwork out of Tuscany

AN ADVENTURE, _by_ Honore de Balzac,
_from_ A Passion in the Desert

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC, _by_ Axel Munthe,
_from_ Vagaries

OUT OF DOORS, _by_ Richard Jefferies,
_from_ Saint Guido

THE TABOO, _by_ Herman Melville,
_from_ Typee

SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT, _by_ George Sand,
_from_ The Story of My Life (adapted)

IN BRITTANY, _by_ Louisa Alcott,
_from_ Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag

THE ADIRONDACKS, _by_ John Burroughs,
_from_ Wake Robin

AN ASCENT OF KILAUEA, _by_ Lady Brassey,
_from_ Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam

THE FETISH, _by_ George Eliot,
_from_ The Mill on the Floss

SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND, _by_ James A. Froude,
_from_ A Fortnight in Kerry

ACROSS RUNNING WATER, _by_ Fiona Macleod,
_from_ Sea Magic and Running Water

THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS, _by_ Nathaniel Hawthorne,
_from_ Grandfather's Chair

THE WHITE TRAIL, _by_ Stewart Edward White,
_from_ The Silent Places

A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG, _by_ Charles Lamb,
_from_ Essays of Elia

THE LAST CLASS, _by_ Alphonse Daudet,
_from_ Monday Tales

AN ARAB FISHERMAN, _by_ Albert Edwards,
_from_ The Barbary Coast

THE ARCHERY CONTEST, _by_ Walter Scott,
_from_ Ivanhoe

BABY SYLVESTER, _by_ Bret Harte,
_from_ Bret Harte's Writings

THE ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG, _by_ Abraham Lincoln,
_from_ Lincoln's Speeches

THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, _by_ Abraham Lincoln,
_from_ Lincoln's Speeches

AN APPRECIATION OF LINCOLN, _by_ John Hay,
_from_ Life of Lincoln

THE ELEPHANTS THAT STRUCK, _by_ Samuel White Baker,
_from_ Eight Years in Ceylon

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, _by_ Bret Harte

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN, _by_ Rudyard Kipling,
_from_ Plain Tales from the Hills

A CHILD, _by_ John Galsworthy,
_from_ Commentary

TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE, _by_ Benjamin Franklin,
_from_ The Autobiography

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT, _by_ Robert Louis Stevenson,
_from_ The New Arabian Nights

A BAD FIVE MINUTES IN THE ALPS, _by_ Leslie Stephen,
_from_ Freethinking and Plainspeaking (adapted)

THE GOLD TRAIL, _by_ Stewart Edward White,
_from_ Gold

TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE, _by_ J. Kennedy McLean,
_from_ Heroes of the Farthest North and South (adapted)

THE SPEECH IN MANCHESTER, _by_ Henry Ward Beecher,
_from_ Addresses and Sermons

A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER, _by_ Robert Louis Stevenson,
_from_ Travels with a Donkey

A NIGHT IN THE PINES, _by_ Robert Louis Stevenson,
_from_ Travels with a Donkey

LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK, _by_ Washington Irving,
_from_ Knickerbocker's History of New York

THE BAZAAR IN MOROCCO, _by_ Pierre Loti,
_from_ Into Morocco

A BATTLE OF THE ANTS, _by_ Henry D. Thoreau,
_from_ Walden (adapted)

AN AFRICAN PET, _by_ Paul B. du Chaillu,
_from_ The African Forest and Jungle

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, _by_ Lloyd Morgan,
_from_ Animal Sketches (adapted)

BUCK'S TRIAL OF STRENGTH, _by_ Jack London,
_from_ The Call of the Wild

ON THE SOLANDER WHALING GROUND, _by_ Frank Bullen,
_from_ Idylls of the Sea

AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, _by_ Charles Dickens,
_from_ A Tale of Two Cities

THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL, _by_ Pierre Loti,
_from_ Into Morocco (adapted)

WALT WHITMAN, _by_ John Burroughs,
_from_ Whitman--A Study (adapted)

HEROISM IN HOUSEKEEPING, _by_ Jane Welsh Carlyle,
_from_ Letters

A YOUTHFUL ACTOR, _by_ Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
_from_ The Story of a Bad Boy

WAR, _by_ Thomas Carlyle, _from_ Sartor Resartus

COON-HUNTING, _by_ Ernest Ingersoll,
_from_ Wild Neighbors (adapted)

SIGHT IN SAVAGES, _by_ W. H. Hudson,
_from_ Idle Days in Patagonia

THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER, _by_ Washington Irving,
_from_ The Sketch Book




INTRODUCTION


The testimony of librarians as to the kind of books people are reading
nowadays is somewhat discouraging to the book-lover who has been brought
up in the old traditions. We are told that Scott and Thackeray and
George Eliot cannot compete with the year's "best sellers," and that the
old classics are read only by the few who have a cultivated taste and a
trained intelligence.

The interest of novelty, the dislike of mental effort, the temptation to
read merely for a mild sensation,--all these undoubtedly tend to keep
down the level of literary taste. To many readers of good average
ability, neither the esthetic nor the purely intellectual makes a strong
appeal. Even minds of fine quality often find a welcome diversion in
trivial reading. In fact, to expect every one and at all times to have
his mind keyed up to the higher levels is neither sincere nor
reasonable. And yet, making due allowance for intellectual limitations,
for the busy and distracting conditions of modern life, and for the real
need of light reading at times when recreation is of more value than
instruction, it would seem that a fair proportion of our reading could
and should be on a higher plane.

To put it on this high plane is one of the fixed objects of the school.
For this end the schools have given English an important place, have
broadened the list of recommended books year by year, and have sought to
improve the method of teaching literature. Especially have they hoped to
create in the pupil the habit of reading good books and of discovering
new material on his own initiative. Thus far their success has fallen
much below their hopes, as the testimony of librarians, adduced above,
plainly indicates.

There is one significant fact which both librarians and teachers have
observed. The average reader, child or adult, seldom knows how or where
to find things to read. He is lost in a library, whether among the
book-shelves or at a card-catalogue. He is like a traveler who is
ignorant of the geography of the country and cannot use the compass. And
worse still, he has not the explorer's instinct. If he possessed this,
he would somehow find his way himself,--a thing which occasionally
happens when the reader has more than usual ability. Between the covers
of those books, turning to him their uncommunicative backs, behind those
labels--to him so unexpressive--there may be passages, whole chapters or
more, that would give him entertainment, if he only knew!

To introduce him to an author may be to give him a new friend.
Introductions need not imply long and intimate companionship. This
author may hold him for half an hour, and never again; that one may
claim his attention for a day; and another may come to rank as one of
his old friends. In each case the acquaintance may depend upon the fact
of an introduction, and not upon the reader's own initiative in
discovery. More than the acquaintances thus made, is the sense of
at-homeness among books which they gradually bring about. We all know
that feeling of the unreality of a book of which we have merely heard
the title, and how soon we forget it. A book that we have seen and
handled, however, and especially one which we have read or from which we
have seen a passage quoted in another volume, is somehow real,--an
entity. Through continued experiences of this sort we come to feel
really acquainted with books, to know where to find the things we are
looking for, to judge and appreciate,--in brief, to feel at home among
them.

It is as a series of such introductions to the larger world of
literature that this volume has been compiled. Some of the selections
are from books whose titles are already familiar to high school
students; many others are from sources that few pupils will know. All of
them, it is confidently believed, are within the interest and
comprehension of boys and girls of high school age. The notes and
questions at the end of each selection will, it is hoped, be of some
help to the students in getting at the author's meaning, and in
suggesting interesting topics for discussion. If, after finishing the
Short Stories and Selections, a few more students will have formed the
habit of good reading and will feel, not merely willing, but eager, to
enlarge their acquaintance among good books, this volume has
accomplished its purpose.

EMILIE K. BAKER




SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS




A LEAF IN THE STORM


Bernadou clung to his home with a dogged devotion. He would not go from
it to fight unless compelled, but for it he would have fought like a
lion. His love for his country was only an indefinite shadowy existence
that was not clear to him; he could not save a land that he had never
seen, a capital that was only to him as an empty name; nor could he
comprehend the danger that his nation ran; nor could he desire to go
forth and spend his lifeblood in defence of things unknown to him. He
was only a peasant, and he could not read nor greatly understand. But
affection for his birthplace was a passion with him,--mute indeed, but
deep-seated as an oak. For his birthplace he would have struggled as a
man can struggle only when supreme love as well as duty nerves his arm.
Neither he nor Reine Allix could see that a man's duty might lie from
home, but in that home both were alike ready to dare anything and to
suffer everything. It was a narrow form of patriotism, yet it had
nobleness, endurance, and patience in it; in song it has been oftentimes
deified as heroism, but in modern warfare it is punished as the blackest
crime.

So Bernadou tarried in his cottage till he should be called, keeping
watch by night over the safety of his village and by day doing all he
could to aid the deserted wives and mothers of the place by tilling
their ground for them and by tending such poor cattle as were left in
their desolate fields. He and Margot and Reine Allix, between them, fed
many mouths that would otherwise have been closed in death by famine,
and denied themselves all except the barest and most meagre subsistence,
that they might give away the little they possessed.

And all this while the war went on, but seemed far from them, so seldom
did any tidings of it pierce the seclusion in which they dwelt. By and
by, as the autumn went on, they learned a little more. Fugitives coming
to the smithy for a horse's shoe; women fleeing to their old village
homes from their light, gay life in the city; mandates from the
government of defence sent to every hamlet in the country; stray
news-sheets brought in by carriers or hawkers and hucksters,--all these
by degrees told them of the peril of their country,--vaguely, indeed,
and seldom truthfully, but so that by mutilated rumors they came at last
to know the awful facts of the fate of Sedan, the fall of the Empire,
the siege of Paris. It did not alter their daily lives: it was still too
far off and too impalpable. But a foreboding, a dread, an unspeakable
woe settled down on them. Already their lands and cattle had been
harassed to yield provision for the army and large towns; already their
best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and the forage-wagons;
already their ploughshares were perforce idle, and their children cried
because of the scarcity of nourishment; already the iron of war had
entered into their souls.

The little street at evening was mournful and very silent: the few who
talked spoke in whispers, lest a spy should hear them, and the young
ones had no strength to play: they wanted food.

Bernadou, now that all means of defence was gone from him, and the only
thing left to him to deal with was his own life, had become quiet and
silent and passionless, as was his habit. He would have fought like a
mastiff for his home, but this they had forbidden him to do, and he was
passive and without hope. He closed his door, and sat down with his hand
in that of Reine Allix and his arm around his wife. "There is nothing to
do but wait" he said sadly. The day seemed very long in coming.

The firing (which had come nearer each day) ceased for a while; then its
roll commenced afresh, and grew still nearer to the village. Then again
all was still.

At noon a shepherd staggered into the place, pale, bleeding, bruised,
covered with mire. The Prussians, he told them, had forced him to be
their guide, had knotted him tight to a trooper's saddle, and had
dragged him with them until he was half dead with fatigue and pain. At
night he had broken from them and had fled: they were close at hand, he
said, and had burned the town from end to end because a man had fired at
them from a house-top. That was all he knew. Bernadou, who had gone out
to hear his news, returned into the house and sat down and hid his face
within his hands.

It grew dark. The autumn day died. The sullen clouds dropped scattered
rain. The red leaves were blown in millions by the wind. The little
houses on either side the road were dark, for the dwellers in them dared
not show any light that might be a star to allure to them the footsteps
of their foes. Bernadou sat with his arms on the table, and his head
resting on them. Margot nursed her son: Reine Allix prayed.

Suddenly in the street without there was the sound of many feet of
horses and of men, the shouting of angry voices, the splashing of quick
steps in the watery ways, the screams of women, the flash of steel
through the gloom. Bernadou sprang to his feet, his face pale, his blue
eyes dark as night. "They are come!" he said under his breath. It was
not fear that he felt, nor horror: it was rather a passion of love for
his birthplace and his nation,--a passion of longing to struggle and to
die for both. And he had no weapon!

He drew his house-door open with a steady hand, and stood on his own
threshold and faced these, his enemies. The street was full of
them,--some mounted, some on foots crowds of them swarmed in the woods
on the roads. They had settled on the village as vultures on a dead
lamb's body. It was a little, lowly place: it might well have been left
in peace. It had had no more share in the war than a child still unborn,
but it came in the victor's way, and his mailed heel crushed it as he
passed. They had heard that arms were hidden and francs-tireurs
sheltered there, and they had swooped down on it and held it hard and
fast. Some were told off to search the chapel; some to ransack the
dwellings; some to seize such food and bring such cattle as there might
be left; some to seek out the devious paths that crossed and recrossed
the field; and yet there still remained in the little street hundreds of
armed men, force enough to awe a citadel or storm a breach.

The people did not attempt to resist. They stood passive, dry-eyed in
misery, looking on whilst the little treasures of their household lives
were swept away forever, and ignorant what fate by fire or iron might be
their portion ere the night was done. They saw the corn that was their
winter store to save their offspring from famine poured out like
ditch-water. They saw oats and wheat flung down to be trodden into a
slough of mud and filth. They saw the walnut presses in their kitchens
broken open, and their old heirlooms of silver, centuries old, borne
away as booty. They saw the oak cupboard in their wives' bedchambers
ransacked, and the homespun linen and the quaint bits of plate that had
formed their nuptial dowers cast aside in derision or trampled into a
battered heap. They saw the pet lamb of their infants, the silver
earrings of their brides, the brave tankards they had drunk their
marriage wine in, the tame bird that flew to their whistle, all seized
for food or spoil. They saw all this, and had to stand by with mute
tongues and passive hands, lest any glance of wrath or gesture of
revenge should bring the leaden bullets in their children's throats or
the yellow flame amidst their homesteads. Greater agony the world cannot
hold.

--LOUISE DE LA RAMEE (Ouida).

[Footnote: This extract is taken from a story by the same title. The
chief characters are the peasant Bernadou, his wife Margot, and his old
grandmother Reine Allix. The scene is laid during the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870. The great defeat of the French at Sedan, and the surrender
of Paris from starvation after a long siege brought the war to an end.
The victorious Prussians took from France an indemnity of five billion
francs ($1,000,000,000), and two of their richest provinces, Alsace and
Lorraine.

What words in the first sentence show that it is not the beginning of
the story? Note the repeated use of antithesis (contrast) in the first
paragraph. By what details do you learn the state of the country? How
did the war affect even the people remote from the battlefields? How are
the terror and suffering of the people indicated? Notice the
effectiveness of the author's use of details. Have you read any prose or
poetry in which war is made to seem glorious? How does it seem here?
Does the author make the scene of the arrival of the Prussians vivid?
How is this done? Note the dramatic contrast between the arrival of the
Prussians and the actions of the peasants. How has the author drawn the
character of Bernadou? By what details does the author give special
poignancy to the pathos of her account? What is the significance of the
title "A Leaf in the Storm"?]




CATS


There was once a man in Italy--so the story runs--who said that animals
were sacred because God had made them. People didn't believe him for a
long time; they came, you see, of a race which had found it amusing to
kill such things, and killed a great many of them too, until it struck
them one fine day that killing men was better sport still, and watching
men kill each other the best sport of all because it was the least
trouble. Animals said they, why, how can they be sacred; things that you
call beef and mutton when they have left off being oxen and sheep, and
sell for so much a pound? They scoffed at this mad neighbour, looked at
each other waggishly and shrugged their shoulders as he passed along the
street. Well! then, all of a sudden, as you may say, one morning he
walked into the town--Gubbio it was--with a wolf pacing at his heels--a
certain wolf which had been the terror of the country-side and eaten I
don't know how many children and goats. He walked up the main street
till he got to the open Piazza in front of the great church. And the
long grey wolf padded beside him with a limp tongue lolling out between
the ragged palings which stood him for teeth. In the middle of the
Piazza was a fountain, and above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our
friend mounted the steps of the cross in the alert way he had (like a
little bird, the story says) and the wolf, after lapping apologetically
in the basin, followed him up three steps at a time. Then with one arm
around the shaft to steady himself, he made a fine sermon to the
neighbours crowding in the Square, and the wolf stood with his fore-paws
on the edge of the fountain and helped him. The sermon was all about
wolves (naturally) and the best way of treating them. I fancy the people
came to agree with it in time; anyhow when the man died they made a
saint of him and built three churches, one over another, to contain his
body. And I believe it is entirely his fault that there are a
hundred-and-three cats in the convent-garden of San Lorenzo in Florence.
For what are you to do? Animals are sacred, says Saint Francis. Animals
are sacred, but cats have kittens; and so it comes about that the people
who agree with Saint Francis have to suffer for the people who don't.

The Canons of San Lorenzo agree with Saint Francis, and it seems to me
that they must suffer a good deal. The convent is large; it has a great
mildewed cloister with a covered-in walk all around it built on arches.
In the middle is a green garth [Footnote: Garth: an inclosure, a yard.]
with cypresses and yews dotted about; and when you look up you see the
blue sky cut square, and the hot tiles of a huge dome staring up into
it. Round the cloister walk are discreet brown doors, and by the side of
each door a brass plate tells you the name and titles of the Canon who
lives behind it. It is on the principle of Dean's yard at Westminster;
only here there are more Canons--and more cats.

The Canons live under the cloister; the cats live on the green garth,
and sometimes die there. I did not see much of the Canons; but the cats
seemed to me very sad--depressed, nostalgic even, might describe them,
if there had not been something more languid, something faded and
spiritless about their habit. It was not that they quarrelled. I heard
none of those long-drawn wails, gloomy yet mellow soliloquies, with
which our cats usher in the crescent moon or hymn her when she swims at
the full: there lacked even that comely resignation we may see on any
sunny window-ledge at home;--the rounded back and neatly ordered tail,
the immaculate fore-paws peering sedately below the snowy chest, the
squeezed-up eyes which so resolutely shut off a bleak and (so to say)
unenlightened world. That is pensiveness, sedate chastened melancholy;
but it is soothing, it speaks a philosophy, and a certain balancing of
pleasures and pains. In San Lorenzo cloister, when I looked in one hot
noon seeking a refuge from the glare and white dust of the city, I was
conscious of a something sinister that forbade such an even existence
for the smoothest tempered cat. There were too many of them for
companionship and perhaps too few for the humour of the thing to strike
them: in and out the chilly shades they stalked gloomily, hither and
thither like lank and unquiet ghosts of starved cats. They were of all
colours--gay orange-tawny, tortoise shell with the becoming white patch
over one eye, delicate tints of grey and fawn and lavender, brindle,
glossy sable; and yet the gloom and dampness of the place seemed to
mildew them all so that their brightness was glaring and their softest
gradations took on a shade as of rusty mourning. No cat could be
expected to do herself justice.

To and fro they paced, balancing sometimes with hysterical precision
[Footnote: Hysterical precision. What does this mean?] on the ledge of
the parapet, passing each other at whisker's length, but cutting each
other dead. [Footnote: Cutting each other dead. Have you ever thought of
the quaint absurdity of this figurative expression?] Not a cat had a
look or a sniff for his fellow; not a cat so much as guessed at
another's existence. Among those hundred-and-three restless Spirits
there was not a cat that did not affect to believe that a
hundred-and-two were away! It was horrible, the inhumanity of it. Here
were these shreds and waifs, these "unnecessary litters" of Florentine
households, herded together in the only asylum (short of the Arno
[Footnote: Arno: the river that flows through Florence.]) open to them,
driven in like dead leaves in November, flitting dismally round and
round for a span, and watching each other die without a mew or a lick!
Saint Francis was not the wise man I had thought him. [Footnote: St.
Francis not the wise man, etc. Why not?]

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. I had watched these beasts at
their feverish exercises for nearly an hour before I perceived that they
were gradually hemming me in. They seemed to be forming up, in ranks, on
the garth. Only a ditch separated us--I was in the cloister-walk, a
hundred-and-three gaunt, expectant, desperate cats facing me. Their
famished pale eyes pierced me through and through; and two-hundred-
and-two hungry eyes (four cats supported life on one apiece)
is more than I can stand, though I am a married man with a family. These
brutes thought I was going to feed them! I was preparing weakly for
flight when I heard steps in the gateway; a woman came in with a black
bag. She must be going to deposit a cat on Jean-Jacques [Footnote: Jean
Jacques Rousseau: a French philosophical writer of the last part of the
eighteenth century. His chief works are "Emile," "Social Contract,"
"Confessions."] ingenious plan of avoiding domestic trouble; it was
surely impossible she wanted to borrow one! Neither: she came
confidently in, beaming on our mad fellowship with a pleasant smile of
preparation. The cats knew her better than I did. Their suspense was
really shocking to witness. While she was rolling her sleeves up and
tying on her apron--she was poor, evidently, but very neat and wholesome
in her black dress and the decent cap which crowned her hair--while she
unpacked the contents of the bag--two newspaper parcels full of rather
distressing viands, scissors, and a pair of gloves which had done duty
more than once,--while all these preparations were soberly fulfilling,
the agitation of the hundred-and-three was desperate indeed. The air
grew thick, it quivered with the lashing of tails; hoarse mews echoed
along the stone walls, paws were raised and let fall with the rhythmical
patter of raindrops. A furtive beast played the thief: he was one of the
one-eyed fraternity, red with mange. Somehow he slipped in between us;
we discovered him crouched by the newspaper raking over the contents.
This was no time for ceremony; he got a prompt cuff over the head and
slunk away shivering and shaking his ears. And then the distribution
began. Now, your cat, at the best of times, is squeamish about his food;
he stands no tricks. He is a slow eater, though he can secure his dinner
with the best of us. A vicious snatch, like a snake, and he has it. Then
he spreads himself out to dispose of the prey--feet tucked well in, head
low, tail laid close along, eyes shut fast. That is how a cat of
breeding loves to dine. Alas! many a day of intolerable prowling, many a
black vigil, had taken the polish off the hundred-and-three. As a matter
of fact they behaved abominably; they leaped at the scraps, they clawed
at them in the air, they bolted them whole with staring eyes and
portentous gulpings, they growled all the while with the smothered
ferocity of thunder in the hills. No waiting of turns, no licking of
lips and moustaches to get the lingering flavors, no dalliance. They
were as restless and suspicious here as everywhere; their feast was the
horrid hasty orgy of ghouls in a church-yard. But an even distribution
was made: I don't think any one got more than his share. Of course there
were underhand attempts in plenty and, at least once, open violence--a
sudden rush from opposite sides, a growling and spitting like sparks
from a smithy; and then, with ears laid flat, two ill-favoured beasts
clawed blindly at each other, and a sly and tigerish brindle made away
with the morsel. My woman took the thing very coolly I thought, served
them all alike, and didn't resent (as I should have done) the
unfortunate want of delicacy there was about these vagrants. A cat that
takes your food and growls at you for the favor, a cat that would eat
you if he dared, is a pretty revelation. _Ca donne furieusement a
penser._ [Footnote: Ca donne furieusement a penser: "That makes one
think very hard."] It gives you a suspicion of just how far the polish
we most of us smirk over will go. My cats at San Lorenzo knew some few
moments of peace between two and three in the afternoon. That would have
been the time to get up a testimonial to the kind soul who fed them. Try
them at five and they would ignore you. But try them next morning!

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