Besides, I have been especially authorized to offer you a thousand dollars simply to drop the thing.

It's worth that much to us just now to be let alone." Winston's eyes half closed, his fingers gripping nervously into the palm of his hand.
"It occurs to me you place my selling-out price at rather low figures," he said contemptuously.
Farnham straightened up in his chair, instantly realizing he had been guilty of playing the wrong card, and for the moment totally unable to perceive how safely to withdraw it.

Even then he utterly failed to comprehend the deeper meaning in the other's words.
"I was thinking rather of what it was directly worth to us," he explained, "and had no conception you would look at it that way.
However, we are perfectly willing to be liberal--how much do you want ?" For a moment Winston stared straight at him, his lips firmly set, his gray eyes grown hard as steel.

Then he deliberately pushed back his chair, and rose to his feet, one clinched hand resting on the table.
"You may not fully understand my position," he began quietly, "for in all probability such a conception is utterly beyond you, but I do n't want a dollar, nor a cent.

Good-night." He turned deliberately toward the entrance, but the thoroughly astounded gambler leaped to his feet with one hand extended in sudden protest.