paying for the resin, not the table — "so Gately only had to pay…"
so Gately only had to pay for the tube of fake-wood-resin instead of a whole new institutional table.
Context
The Ninth Step rendered as petty logistics: Gately owing a "Financial Amend" for a cracked institutional table, spared the full cost only because a semi-Crocodile refinisher fixed it for the price of a tube of fake-wood-resin. The doctrine of making amends scaled down to a repaired table and a grudging expense — the Program's abstractions cashed out in furniture.