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I wished I could just hide in the back, but Samir had made a show of thanking his “good and faithful Monkey, who was well worth the king’s ransom of six bolts of silk.”

Kurosawa’s “High and Low,” released in 1963 and starring Toshiro Mifune, was adapted from the Ed McBain novel “King’s Ransom.”

He worked long hours as a TV editor; he wasn’t rich, but had no debt and earned what seemed to me then like a king’s ransom: something like a grand a week.

Goodness knows television companies and fans have paid a king's ransom for that privilege.

It's not going to go away by just saying "no" over and over again, or pleading poverty when you, my friend, are making a king's ransom.