"Yeah, they don't want a corpse as their Victor, you know? It's only after they're old news that they cut their tongues out and stuff."

Howard drains the rest of his coffee and searches through his pockets for some cash. He's been pickpocketing most of it, so he has enough to feed himself outside the training center in spite of having run up his credit limit long ago, but he still waits to see if John will offer to buy more.