Hello, boy. Feeling a bit poorly? I know your friends are responsible for most of the cash, so I'm gonna give you one week to find it. Otherwise I will take a finger off each of you and your friends' hands for every day that passes without payment. And then, when you've run out of digits... your dad's bar, and who knows what then? All right, my son?
I'll give you this much. You might get along with this guy. He calls himself Mr Wizard, but he's another shitbag just like you. Now get out of here. I'm gonna have you back in here in a week, though, and I'll have your markers on this desk. You either buy them back or I'm going to have my friends tool up on you. And like Booker T says, once they start, they do it until they're satisfied.
—Mr Reggie, Popsy
Cavendish then announces that the tent will be opening the following night for gambling. However, the stakes have subtly increased. On a subliminal level, some gamblers realize that the Ringmaster holds their souls, and they go home to nightmares. By the time the circus leaves an area, Cavendish has collected numerous souls to feed the Board of Directors as well as skim off the top to purchase sections of his own soul back. The last nights of the circus in an area find the tent full of desperate gamblers attempting to win their souls back. The smarter ones attempt to strike up various deals with Cavendish, even sacrificing innocents and loved ones to make the damning dreams stop.
Before he knew it, McIntyre had debts amounting to almost five times his annual salary. In desperation, to pay off the Ganymedian Mafia who ran the snail pits, he'd taken a massive loan from the Golden Assurance Friendly and Caring Loan Society... which, as it turned out, was also run by the Ganymedian Mafia. He didn't know it when he signed, but they charged an annual percentage rate of nine thousand eight hundred percent.
The clause in the contract which specified this took the term "small print" to a whole new dimension: the clause was concealed in a microdot, occupying the dot of the "i" on page three of the loan agreement, in the phrase "Welcome, you are now a member of the Golden Assurance family."
Startled to discover his first monthly instalment was some seven times more than the original loan, he gambled what was left and lost that, too.
—Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
You see, your friend owes me money, Mr. Drake. A lot of money. So when he told me that you two were onto something big- the "find of a lifetime", he said- well, I was intrigued. But he's made grand promises before. Haven't you, Victor? And here we are again. Another fool's errand... Unless, of course, you found something in there, Mr. Drake, that might compensate for all this... unpleasantness?
I was gambling and in heavy debt. I was totally broke when one day a man came to see me. He told me his name was Geese Howard. He said that he would take on my debts if I would help him in his business undertakings. However, I soon found out what kind of a man Geese Howard really was.
—Takuma Sakazaki, Art of Fighting (SNES port)
