He turned and started for the revolving door, walking in a kind of used-up way that told me I’d really gone over the line. He didn’t look back once. He just wanted to get far, far away.

I went through the door after him. I grabbed the bottom of his filthy jacket and held on tight.

“Look, Eksar,” I said, fast, as he pulled. “I went over your budget, way over, I can see that. But you know you can do better than two thousand. I want as much as I can get. What the hell, I’m taking time out to bother with you. How many other guys would?”

That got him. He cocked his head, then began nodding. I let go of his jacket as he came around. We were connecting again!

“Good. You level with me, and I’ll level with you. Go up a little higher. What’s your best price? What’s the best you can do?”

He stared down the street, thinking, and his tongue came out and licked at the side of his dirty mouth. His tongue was dirty, too. I mean that! Some kind of black stuff, grease or grime, was all over his tongue.

“How about,” he said, after a while, “how about twenty-five hundred? That’s as high as I can go. I don’t have another cent.”

I didn’t think so. I’ve got a feeling when a guy says this is as high as he can go that actually he’s prepared to go a little higher. Eksar wanted to make the deal real bad, but he couldn’t resist pulling back just a little. He was the kind of guy, he could be absolutely dying of thirst, ready to kick off in a second if he didn’t get something to drink. You offer him a glass of water, and you say you want a buck for it. He looks at it with his eyes popping and his tongue all swollen, and he asks will you take ninety-five cents?

He was like me: he was a natural bargainer.

“You can go to three thousand,” I urged. “How much is three thousand? Only another five hundred. Look what you get for it. Earth, the whole planet, and fishing and mineral rights and buried treasure, all that stuff on the Moon. How’s about it?”