“I could give you a start in business. Help you.... I’m a business man, you understand. Anything....”
Wint laughed. “You’re too vague.”
Kite looked at Amos. He looked at him so steadily that Amos got down from the window seat, and whistled softly under his breath, and walked out of the office into the council chamber above the fire-engine house. He shut the door behind him. Kite leaned toward Wint. “Five hundred?” he asked huskily.
Wint chuckled. “I say,” he exclaimed, “I had no idea there was any money in this job.”
“A thousand....”
“I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like to be bribed.”
“A thousand, Wint? For God’s sake....”
Wint shook his head, still perfectly good-humored. “There’s no question about it, Kite,” he said. “You surely are an old buzzard. Get out of my nest, you evil bird!”
Kite protested: “Wint, listen to—”
“Damn you!” said Wint, still without heat, “do you want me to throw you out the window?”