purchaser replied, “For you, Sir, to ask such a low sum for these first-class goods and then to turn round and accuse me of over-considering your interests, is indeed a sad breach of etiquette. Trade could not be carried on at all if all the advantages were on one side and the losses on the other; neither am I more devoid of brains than the ordinary run of people that I should fail to understand this principle and let you catch me in a trap.”
So they went on wrangling and jangling, the stall-keeper refusing to charge any more and the runner insisting on paying his own price, until the latter made a show of yielding and put down the full sum demanded on the counter, but took only half the amount of goods. Of course the stall-keeper would not consent to this, and they would both have fallen back upon their original positions had not two old gentlemen who happened to be passing stepped aside and arranged the matter for them by deciding that the runner was to pay the full price but to receive only four-fifths of the goods.
T‘ang and his companions walked on in silence, meditating upon the strange scene they had just witnessed; but they had not gone many steps when they came across a soldier[1] similarly engaged in buying things at an open shop window. He was saying, “When I asked the price of these goods, you, Sir, begged me to take them at my own valuation; but now that I am willing to do so, you complain of the large sum I offer, whereas the truth is that it is actually very much below their real value. Do not treat me thus unfairly.”
“It is not for me, Sir,” replied the shopkeeper, “to demand a price for my own goods; my duty is to leave that entirely to you. But the fact is that these goods are old stock and are not even the best of their kind; you would do much better at another shop. However, let us say half what you are good enough to offer; even
- ↑ If possible a more deadly foe to Chinese tradesmen than the runners above mentioned. These ill-paid, and consequently brutal, vagabonds used to think nothing of snatching pastry or fruit from the costermongers’ stalls as they walked along the streets. Hence the delicacy of our author's satire, which is necessarily somewhat lost upon foreign readers.
