"Thanks, I keep track o' my debts." He patted Jayne on the back as they walked. "Ya know, it might not be my place to say, but you'll be a lot more ent'usiastic if ya learn a simple lesson my Ma taught me when I was a kid:
'Life ain't so much about what it makes you, it's what you make it. Things are as good as ya see 'em, and what might've happened before only opens the way to what can happen now.'
"I know it ain't quite the Confucius stuff the Chinese love, but it's what's kept me up in the wastes, on this boat, and yeah, even in Vegas."
As he gave his part of the money to the seller and entered his room, he began humming the tune to a song from the days before the wars, before the flash, and from the days when life was simple, new, and the world, in its virgin innocence, was slowly barreling toward the future that was its to experience, but whether it was unable to prevent it, or just didn't care, it continued brightly to it and through it, and the next few days being hopefully another step back to those days, to the time when people didn't realize what they had, and, like a gambler on a lucky streak, couldn't cut their losses, and sent themselves sailing into a debt that they might never be able to repay, but where there was something, however minuscule and obscure, that still had, and they could still rebuild with someday...
"No, no, they caaaan't take that awaaay from meeeee."