“Now,” said Galt, “do you see what I mean when I said that a zero can’t hold a mortgage over life? It’s I who’d have to grant you that kind of mortgage—and I don’t. The removal of a threat is not a payment, the negation of a negative is not a reward, the withdrawal of your armed hoodlums is not an incentive, the offer not to murder me is not a value.” “Who . . . who’s said anything about murdering you?” “Who’s said anything about anything else? If you weren’t holding me here at the point of a gun, under threat of death, you wouldn’t have a chance to speak to me at all. And that is as much as
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